


I 




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Tm l><rE3VIOE,'X" 



OP 



HON. INCREASE SUMNER, 

pF pREAT pARRINGTON, MASS. 



A FUNERAL DISCOURSE, 



REV. E V A R T S S C U D D E R 



AN APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING 

OBITUARY NOTICES OF THE PRESS ; RESOLUTIONS 

AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE BERKSHIRE BAR; 

AND DEDICATORY EXERCISES OF 

JULIA SUMNER HALL. 



BRIDGEPORT, C ONN.: 

GOULD & STILES, (FARMER OFFICE,) COR. WALL AND WATER STS. 



1871. 



SERMON. 



Job 8 : 19.—" The small aud the great are there. 



In the hour of this nation's sorest need, when the powers 
of darkness seemed to be almost triumphant, our President 
was suddenly struck down by Death. Upon the day of his 
funeral while nearly the whole nation were in tears, I car- 
ried to the grave the body of a little boy who was unknown 
by many in his own native village. Looking into the grave 
upon that day we realized the truth of Job's words : " The 
small and the great are there." "They shall lie down 
alike together." The dust of one is as good as the dust of 
another. There is no wealth in the grave. Kings leave 
their sceptres. Master and slave meet there and know no 
distinction. The idiot and the scholar, the beggar and the 
millionaire, the small and the great are there. Death hesi- 
tates not to bid the man of business lay down his ledger, 
the warrior his sword, or the judge his ermine. No insig- 
nia of rank, or marks of beauty, or proofs of usefulness stop 
him as he summons his followers, one by one, and marches 
on. what a mighty host is the army that he gathers ! 



How its ranks increase as they follow their mighty captain 
obediently, silently, and swiftly from house to house, to 
palace and hovel, to the battle-field, to hospital and to 
prison, now to some far off vessel upon the sea, and then to 
the crowded city or country village, Jiiaking no distinction, 
granting no dischai-ge, inexorable, irresistible — the long in- 
visible army of the dead ! 

TJie inexorable demand of Death appears more striking 
when we think of the hopes which some cherish of avoiding 
death. Some imagine that youth will necessarily exempt 
them from Death's call. But a larger number die in youth 
than in old age. How often those who seem to have a rea- 
sonable hope of a long life are suddenly summoned by Death. 
Some youth in this assembly with perfect health, vigorous, 
temperate and expecting to live long, whom an insurance 
company would unhesitatingly insure for almost any amount, 
may be the next one obliged to die. " Boast not thyself of 
to-morrow." 

Usefulness does not hinder Death. Yet many imagine 
that they, or some friend of theirs, cannot be spared just 
yet from earth. The thought of work to be done, of unfin- 
ished plans, of influence for good impresses them with the 
feeling that their appointed time is not at hand. They 
reason thus : " God has put me here for some purpose. 
The days of our years are three score years and ten. It takes 
as long as that to accomplish much of anything. Even with 
the future life to compensate for this, may I not reasonably 
expect to live out the full measure of my days ? What 
does a life amount to that is cut off*just as it is begun !" So 
we reason; but God's thoughts are not as ours, and He 
often destroys man's hope. The most useful, those whom 



the world seems to need the most, whose influence, con- 
scious or unconscious, is most positively good, the friends 
of every good enterprise, the friends of virtue and of peace, 
the friends of the poor, those fitted by natural endowment 
and culture to fill any office of trust and power, how often 
are these shining marks for Death's arrow^s ! The most 
useful as w^ell as the youngest, are often the very ones whom 
Death is most eager for. 

You need not be reminded that love is no protection 
against Death. Those loved the most, to whom we cling 
with the tenderest affection, those leaned upon, or because 
of some infirmity cared for with sleepless vigilance, these, O 
how certain to be summoned away just when we loved and 
needed them the most ! 

" But if Death hesitates not at a man's door for any other 
reason, surely that man's religions character is a matter 
which Death takes into consideration, is it not f" We an- 
swer. No. It makes no difference how much or how little 
goodness a person may then have. He may be a spiritual 
milhonaire, or the veriest pauper in morals ; he may be like 
a garden full of weeds and the seeds of w^eeds, wdth no room 
for one blade of honest grass ; and yet Death will not wait 
for one w^eed more to be rooted out, or for one flow^er more 
to blossom. " It is appointed unto man once to die." The 
day for Death to dismount from his pale horse and to knock 
at your door, or at mine, is already chosen ; and when that day 
comes it will make no difference with him whether we have 
hved as we ought to live or not. We may then be illustri- 
ous for virtue of every hue, or we may be the talk of the town 
for the faults and vices that we are guilty of; we may have 
fought successfully many a hard battle with sin, or we may 



have skulked away and even have sold ourselves to the en- 
emy ; nevertheless, when that appointed hour strikes, Death 
will be at our door, and no bar or bolt can keep him out. 
My friend, at that moment, which will soon be here, you 
may have arranged your affairs without having made any 
preparation for the last and greatest duty — the duty of dy- 
ing. You may then be utterly unready, with everything 
to see to, and yet it will not make one second's difference 
with that unrelenting messenger of God. No entreaty will 
avail with him. No excuse will delay his coming. 
He may surprise you in the midst of important work ; you 
may be just entering your closet for the first time to pray ; 
but he will not wait for you to pray — he will not wait for 
you to give yourself to God. Why should he ? Have you 
not had time to prepare for death ! Have you not had 
warning ? Has not God spoken in His word and in His 
providence ? Have you not heard the gospel ! Have you 
not read the Bible ? Well may Death himself be startled 
not to find you ready, and he might exclaim : " Have you 
not seen the notice of my coming, printed on every grave- 
stone, sounded by every church-bell, repeated at every fune- 
ral, by every sermon, by every ache and pain in your body, 
preached to you by every setting sun and falling leaf! Not 
ready for my coming ! Why, how old art thou ? Twenty ? 
thiKty-five ? sixty years ? and still unprepared to die ! It 
matters not — this warrant I must serve !" And, my friend, 
his summons you will obey. 

This fact, that there can be no postponement of Death's 
coming when the appointed hour arrives ; that no condi- 
tion in life and no type of character can avert or delay the 
execution of that sentence of death passed upon all men, 



ought to convince every one that a preparation for death 
consists in sometliing else than a good character and a holy 
life. 

The impression with many is, that one must prepare for 
death by a long and faithful struggle with faults ; that the 
character must be pruned and ripened ; that one must at 
least have got the better of besetting sins, and must have 
earned, in the estimation of his fellow-men a fair title to the 
heavenly inheritance ; that he must be able to present an 
argument at the bar of God's judgment for his own acquit- 
tal, based upon at least a respectable degree of good inten- 
tion. But such a preparation is utterly impossible. If a 
riglit moral cliaracter be the necessary preparation for death, 
God's perfect law is the only test of that preparation ; but 
w^e read — " He that oiFendeth in one point is guilty of all," 
and also that " all have sinned and come short of the glory 
of God." Now, where is the man wlio can stand the test 
of God's perfect law ? Who is there " perfect as our Father 
in heaven is perfect ?" What one of you would dare stand 
to-day at God's bar, and plead, " Not guilty ?" Though 
you may have kept God's law to-day, there is the sin of 
yesterday ! The sins of all the past, are they not witnesses 
against you, and do they not prove you unprepared to die ? 

Moreover, if right living be the true and only prepara- 
tion for God's final judgment of us, why does not Death 
give all an equal chance ? What means it that Death is so 
unyielding in his demands, and bids man put on his white 
livery and depart at once, whether he be ready or not '? 
Why does not Death give every man a full opportunity of 
making the necessary preparation, by overcoming sin and 
perfecting a character which will be able to stand God's 



8 

scrutiny ? Here is one who is beginning in good earnest to 
repent of sin, but he is full of faults ; sin is rooted in him ; 
and liis heart is all tied up by bad habits. Why does not 
Death postpone his coming to that soul, if eternity can be 
prepared for only by tlie possession of a spotless character. 

Thank God ! the reason is, that to be saved, one need only 
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ — God's Son — who died 
that sinful men might, in spite of their sin, be ready for 
Death's summons, however early and however suddenly he 
might come. This is the preparation to be made. " Other 
foundation can no man lay." " He that believeth shall be 
saved." " Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's 
elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemn- 
eth? It is Christ that died." This is the argument 
with which to plead successfully at God's judgment bar 
Not the argument from a holy life ; not the argument ffom 
a tolerably respectable and average morality ; not that from 
good intentions — but the argument based upon the atone- 
ment and mediation of the Son of God. This argument be- 
gins by pleading guilty and admitting all the counts in tlie 
accusation. The accused is a sinner and does not pretend 
to deserve one iota of God's favor. He cannot contradict 
or excuse the facts. Yet he has one plea which never has 
failed and wliich never can fail, because God bids him make 
it, — the plea that Jesus died for him upon the cross. He 
who is ready to go before God with this, and only this 
ground of hope, is prepared to die. He has retained Jesus 
Christ as his advocate, and therefore may quietly await the 
summons of God's High Sheriff, Death. 

Friends: to just this preparation we all are limited. 
Whoever we may be ; however we may have lived j how- 



ever nobly, usefully, beautifully ; whether we be rich, or 
learned, or eloquent, or famous, or quite the reverse ; 
whether we go to the grave " unwept, unhonored and un- 
sung," or followed by a throng of weeping friends, lamented 
by the whole nation it may be ; our hope can only be in 
the grace of Jesus Christ, God's Son. Answering Death's 
summons, the soul in readiness replies : 

''Just as I am, without oue plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me. 
And that thou bid'st me come to thee : 
O Lamb of God, I come/' 



We have directed your attention to this thought partly 
because it was this that occupied and comforted our friend 
in his last sickness. Judge Sumner, after nearly seventy 
years' experience, about fifty of which were spent in pro- 
fessional study and pnictice, accustomed to measure the 
character and to test the motives of men, intelligent and 
honest, emphatically said that his life had been " far differ- 
ent from what it should have been," and that his hope was 
" only in the mercy of God through the mediation of His 
Son." 

There was much tu admire in his life and character. His 
self-education, for he was graduated at no college ; his 
great physical vigor and untiring industry ; his wonderful 
memory; his legal learning and his success as a lawyer ; his 
perfect integrity in all public office ; his friendliness to the 
poor ; his hatred of meanness and dishonesty ; his warm 
and generous love for his family and friends ; these facts and 
traits rendered him worthy of the respect felt by all who 

9 



10 

knew him well. His long, successful, useful and honorable 
career, should encourage every other farmer boy on our 
New England hills to a similar hope and effort. 

But all his honors, all success that he had had, and his 
whole influence as a man and lawyer, he desired to lay 
down at the feet of Jesus Christ, and to take his place with 
the very w^orst criminal as a guilty, sinful and unworthy 
man ; hoping, as he himself said, " only in the mercy of 
God through the mediation of Jesus Christ, His Son." 

I know tliat he had faults — (who has not f) — many faults 
it may be, and he was ready to admit them ; faults which 
his professional conflict with men was not fitted to disguise 
or soften ; faults which, as he was a public man, subjected 
him to criticism and to the enmity of some ; faults arising 
from a nervous and impulsive nature, which he did not conceal 
or resist as he ought to have done. All this I know, but as 
I remember them I also recall the words of the Master : 
" Judge not that ye be not judged." 

I was sent for by him early one morning during his last 
sickness, and as I sat there by his bedside, I felt that it was 
an honest hour, and that I could believe him when, ii-. vari- 
ous words, he told me that his hope was in the Saviour. 
" Only there," he said, " only there !" " what a Saviour 
he is !" w^as his repeated exclamation. As I listened to his 
clear and earnest words about death, about the Saviour, I 
could not help wishing that he had stood up before men and 
plead the cause of Christ as ably and eloquently as he used to 
plead the cause of men. But I felt that the hour of death is 
an honest hour. That was with him an honest hour also, I 
think, at midnight on last New Year's eve. The clock 
struck twelve, and the new year began. He noticed it with 



11 



pleasant words of reminiscence and hope, and deeply im- 
pressed as he lay awake in that first hour of 1871, he said, 
" Let us pray the prayer our Lord taught his disciples." 
Thus he began the year. 

[Since the above w^as written I have learned that at one 
time in his sickness when he was encouraged by the hope 
of recovery, he said, referring to the hour when he had 
seemed to be very near death, " I stood upon the brink 
and it would have been just as easy to step over to the 
other siae as to step back — there was no pain and no fear." 
He talked much to his wife of God's mercy to him — " I have 
passed through great sorrow — four children gone — you know 
what it was for me to part with one of them — and a sorrow 
beyond that. But God has been kind to me through it 
all."] 

As the sun was going down, last Friday afternoon, I en- 
tered his home and found that the sunset of his life was 
just at hand. His three score years and ten were nearly 
ended — and as he quietly breathed his last, we knelt down 
and prayed, " Lord Jesus receive his spirit." With that 
Lord we leave him, as we ourselves must be left by those 
who shall weep for us. And we can leave him so, for that 
Lord does all things well. 



APPENDIX 



NOTICES OF THE PEESS. 



From the Pittsfield Snn, February 16th, 1871. 

THE LATE JUDGE SUMNER. 

INCKEASE SUMNER was bom at Otis, May 13th, 1801. His father was 
Daniel Sumner, a native of Middletown, Conn., and one of the early settlers 
of Otis He had a family of seven chUdren, of whom Increase was the fifth. 
He had but limited opportunities for early education, but early developed a 
taste for study, in which he was encoiu-aged by an older brother, who was a 
medical student, and afterwards an esteemed physician. 

In 1820, Increase became a law-student in the ofl&ce of Hon. Lester Filley 
at Otis, where he remained for a period of five years, during a considerable of 
which time he was engaged in teaching school as a means of paying his way. 

He taught school in Otis and in Sandisfield, and in the towns of Kinderhook 
and Cambridge in the State of New York. 

In 1825 he removed to Great-Barrmgton. He had intended to locate m 
Sprino^ield, and always deemed it the mistake of his life-time that he did 
not do so; but the removal from Great-BaiTington of William C. Bryant 
created a vacancy there, and Mr. Sumner was his successor as it were. 
Several of the law books in his library bear the autograph of William C. 

Bryant. • xi, i 

The record of Mr. Sumner's career as a lawyer is best shown m the law 
reports of the State, extending over a period of forty years, and is famUiar 
to the profession. His practice was not restricted within State lines, 
and he tried many causes in the neighboring States of New York and Con- 
necticut. 

Mr Sumner was twice a State Senator, and declined another election when 
his party was predommant, and he would undoubtedly have been President 
of the Senate. He was three times a member of the House of Representa- 
tives the last time bemg in 1859, when the General Statutes were revised, and 
the position of Mr. Sumner on the Judiciarj^ Committee was such that more 
labor devolved upon him in connection with that Revision than upon any 
other member of that Legislature. 

He was Democratic candidate for Congress in 1844, his successful compet- 
itor being the Whig candidate, Hon. Julius RockweU. 



16 

In 1851 he was appointed by Governor Boutwell, District Attorney of the 
Western District of Massachusetts, then comprising four Counties, and served 
as such two years. 

In 1858 he was elected to represent his native town, Otis, in the Constitu- 
tional Convention. He was three times a candidate of the Republican and 
American parties for the office of Lieutenant-Governor, and in 185G was Del- 
egate to the Convention at Philadelphia which nominated Millard Fillmore 
for President. 

During the early part of his career he held various town offices ; and was 
Postmaster at Great-Barrington durmg the Van Buren and Tyler adminis- 
trations. 

In 1849 he was appointed by Governor Briggs one of the Commissioners 
on the part of Massachusetts to negotiate with Commissioners of Rhode 
Island for settlement of the boundary line between those States. His asso- 
ciates were Tappan Wentworth of Lowell, and N. B. Bryant of Barre. 

In 1854 he was appointed by Governor Washbvime to act with Levi Lin- 
coln of Worcester, and Edward Jarvis of Dorchester, as a Commission to 
investigate the condition of the State institutions for Insane and Idiotic 
persons, and to report a plan and location for a new Hospital. Much time 
and labor were expended in performing the duties of this commission, and 
the Report made by it was published by order of the Legislature, makiag a 
volume of 200 pages. 

The last public office held by Mr. Sumner was that of Judge of the Dis- 
trict Court of Southern Berkshire, to which he was appointed by Governor 
Claflia to hold for life, and which position he occupied at the time of his 
decease. 

Judge Sumner's career throughout was remarkable for singular devotion 
to the duties of his profession. He was a born lawyer, and loved his calling. 
He never slighted a cause, and always took the laboring oar, when others 
were associated with him. 

The files of the Berkshire Covurts embrace more matter in his hand- writing 
than in that of any other lawyer at the bar, except the County Clerks, since the 
Bar of Berkshire had an existence. He was not only learned as a lawyer, 
but eloquent as an advocate. He was a dangerous antagonist before a jury. 

Aside from his legal and official labors, he found time for other congenial 
pursuits. He had fine literary tastes. At one period of his life he wrote many 
poetical effusions, several of which were pubHshed. His orations and ad- 
dresses, on political, agricultiural and literary topics, would fill volumes. He 
accumulated a large miscellaneovis library, in which none of the really stan- 
dard works were missing. No man was better acquainted with such authors 
as Bacon and Burke than he. Whatever defects might have existed in his 
early education were obviated by subsequent study, and his scholarly attain- 
ments were recognized by the Corporation of WiUiams College in 1839, 
when that institution conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of 
Arts. 

The Chapter in the published Life of Governor Briggs, relating to the Gov- 
ernor's career at the Bar, was written by Mr. Sumner, and the whole work 



17 

would have becu prepared by Mm and under Ms supervision, if his profes- 
sional engagements had left Mm leisiure to assume the undertakmg. 

In his private life Judge Sumner was a man of smgular mtegiity, and m 
all his dealings, above reproach. In the commtmity where he lived he had 
no peers and by some he was regarded, perhaps justly, as too brusque m his 
manner 'and imperious m his bearing. Had he lived m the midst of a large 
commmiity these httle characteristics would have passed mmoticed. In his 
domestic relations he was kmd and tender, and among his neighbors 

'' Lofty and sour to those who loved him not, 
But unto such as sought Mm, sweet as summer. 

But those who loved him least, ^^ill not hesitate to aUow, that although 
there mi-ht have been something of the tiger in his composition, there was 
nothino- of the smtke. What he thought, he made people understand, but 
there was no double -facedness about him. For the mean man he had intense 
disoaist and to the man who dealt dishonestly he was ever a teiTor. 

Amono- Ms brethren at the Bar, Judge Sumner was regarded with more 
than respect and admiration. It was with affection. At the recent Bar 
Meeting and Banquet, he was chosen by acclamation to preside, and that last 
meetmg of his with his legal bretMen cannot but be regarded as a fittmg 
culmination of Ms long, laborious and successful professional career. 

He died havmg been less honored perhaps in his Ufe than accorded with 
his deserts' but highly esteemed by those whose esteem was most valuable. 
Lesser men have held Mgher place, but it is behcved that he is smcerely 
mourned, and that the best of those who knew him best will mourn him most. 



Countv Ea;j;U', Fcliiiiiu y :M 



THE HON. INCRKASE SUMNER. 

After an illness of four weeks, the Honorable Increase Sumner, the oldest 
member of the Berkshire Bar, died at his home m Great-Bamngton, on Fri- 
day last, aged 70 years. 

Mr. Sumner was born in Otis, May l:5th, 1801. He studied law for seven 
years (the time then required of those who were not coUege graduates), with 
Lester FiUey, Esq. , of Otis. On his admission to the Bar, at the Jime Term, 
1825, he removed to Great-Barrmgton, where he resided imtil his death. 
He was always an active and successful practitioner, and for a long time has 
been the acknowledged leader of the BerksMre Bar. Although, as the 
phrase is, self-educated, he was a man of superior cultiu-e, and familiar, not 
only with the learning of his profession but with general literature and sci- 
ence. A man of strong convictions, and deep thought, yet he was not 
ashamed to change party ties when he thought he had good reason for so 
domg. In Van Buren times he was a Democrat ; afterwai'd was associated 
3 



18 

with the American party, and later became a strong supporter of the Repub- 
lican party. He had served often in both branches of the State Legislature ; 
been nominated more than once for Congress; succeeded Mr. Porter of Lee, 
as District Attorney for the Western District ; was a member, elected from 
Otis, of the late Constitutional Convention, and once served on a State Com- 
mission to mvestigate the causes of insanity and the treatment of the insane. 
His latest office, that of Judge of the District Court of Southern Berkshire, 
was given him within the year. Mr. Sumner was twice married. His first 
Mdfe was Miss Barstow of Great-Barrington. He leaves three sons — children 
by his first wife — Col. Samuel B. Sumner of Bridgeport, and Charles and 
Albert, both of whom reside in California. His second wife was a Boston 
lady, who sur\aves him. 

When Mr. Sumner's death was announced on Saturday, in his own Court, 
a meeting of the Bar present was held, and a committee appointed to draft 
suitable resolutions, which will be reported on Saturday. The District 
Court of Central Berkshire also adjourned as a mark of respect to his memory. 
His funeral was attended on Tuesday. The services were a prayer at the 
house, and the usual services at the Congregational Church, and the burial 
sendee at the grave. The funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Mr. 
Scudder of Great -Barrington, from Job 3 : 19 — " The small and the great are 
there" — and was a most eloquent and fitting discourse. Mr. Scudder was 
assisted by Rev. Mr. Maxcy of Bridgeport, and Rev. Dr. Olmstead of Great- 
Barrington. The places of business in the town were closed, and a very 
large concourse attended the services in the church. 

High Sheriff Root and quite a number of deputies were present at the 
funeral, and the Bar of Berkshire was strongly represented. The pall bearers 
were Hon. George J. Tucker of Lenox, Hon. James D. Colt of Pittsfield, 
Hon. M. Wilcox of Pittsfield, H. J. Bliss, Esq. of North Adams, L. H. Gam- 
well, Esq., of Pittsfield, Hon. John Branning of Lee. Other members of the 
Bar present were Messrs. Dewey and Palmer of Great-Barrington, Bradford 
of Sheffield, Spaulding of West Stockbridge, Taft and W^aterman of Lenox, 
Goodrich of Stockbridge, Filley, Pingree, Adam, Barker, Tatlock and Briggs 
of Pittsfield. 



From the Alta California, February 19th, 1871. 

DEATH OF INCREASE SUMNER. 

Reminiscences of the Old Berkshire Bar— High Tributes in 
Memory op One who for a Long Time was its Leading Ad- 
vocate. 

From the Adams Transcript and Berkshire Courier, we copy the svibjoined 
records in regard to the life and character of the eminent lawyer. Judge In- 
crease Sumner, who died at Great-Barrington, Mass. , on the 27th of January 
last. He was well known to a large number of the members of the bar in 



1^ 

this State, some of whom studied law iii Ms office ; and he leaves two sons 
who reside in this city. 

The Adams Transcript of February Gth, says : 

" The death of this eminent member of the Berkshire Bar occurred 
on Friday week, at the ripe age of 70 years. He had long been in feeble 
health and at the recent Bar Festival in Pittstield, the signs of age and ill- 
health were noticed by all, although his speech was marked by intellectual pow- 
er and clearness. He died of typhoid fever, after a sickness of several weeks. 
At the time of his death he was Judge of the District Court of Southern Berk- 
shire and the oldest lawyer but one of the Bar. He was the last active 
member of that intiuential and distinguished group of men who ruled the 
Berkshire Bar twenty-five years ago. We can recaU but five survivors— 
Sayles of South Adams, the Tucker brothers,- and Judges Rockwell and Bish- 
op of Lenox, and aU of these, except Sayles, long smce abandoned active prac- 
tice Sumner has now gone to join in the 'silent land' his associates and 
compeers— Briggs, Byington, Dwight, Whitmg, Hubbard, Filley, Robmson, 
Field, Porter, Dewey and Lanckton. That was a notable cuxle of strong 
men 'who used to contend in the hsts at the old coui-t-house at Lenox, and 
who' after the struggles of the day were over, and they had reached the par- 
lor of the Curtis boardmg house across the way, made the nights delightful 
and memorable with their sparklmg stories and converse. Those were bril- 
liant days and nights for the younger members of the bar, who never wean- 
ed at these rare Mid stimulatmg exhil^itions of power and wit. Time and 
fate have changed all this, and rapidly removed these actors from mortal 
view Among this famous company, Mr. Sumner was conspicuous for his 
leo-al learning, his sldll and eloquence as an advocate, his tireless energy and 
indomitable will and coui-age m the conduct of causes. He was fond of so- 
cial converse, and before ill-health and trouble had wealcened him, he fur- 
nished an important contribution to the common enjoyment. He had fail- 
ings and mfirmities, like the rest, but these are now forgotten as we remem- 
ber the stalwart will, the eloquent tongue, the keen wit, the robust conquer- 
mo- loo-ic of this remarkable pleader. He loved the profession and devoted 
alf his faculties to its practice. He was true to his cHents, and fought for 
their interests with unquenchable ardor, and, for a long time, was the leader 
of the bar. Those who heard him in Ms prime, will not soon forget that 
rare forensic skill and powerful speech." 

The Berkshire Courier of the 8th, gives the foUowmg account of proceed- 
ings in the District Coui't of Southern Berkshu'e, in respect to the memory 
of Judge Sumner : 

" In this Court on Saturday, January 28th, as soon as the necessary busi- 
ness of entering and contmuing cases was dispatched (Judge Bradford pre- 
sidmo-) Mr Wilcox of Pittsfield, referred to the recent death of Hon In- 
crease Snmner, the late standmg Justice of said court, and expressed his 
respect for the character, ability and attainments of the deceased, alluded to 
some of the qualities which had enabled him to hold, for so long a time, a 
commandmg position m Western Massachusetts, and closed by suggesting to 
the Court that a committee be appointed to draw up some resolutions, em- 
bodvino- m permanent form the f eehiigs of those present toward Mr. humner, 
which Resolutions should be reported at the next session of the Court and be 
entered on its records. Messrs. Branning of Lee, and Dewey of Great-Bar- 
migton, supported these suggestions, and Judge Bradford after speakmg 
briSfly but eloquently of Mr. Sumner, appomted Messrs. Wilcox, Branning 
and Dewey as Committee. The Court, as a mark of respect to the deceased 
then adjourned. On Saturday, February 4th, the Committee, through 
the chairman, Mr. WUcox, presented to the Court the foUowmg resolu- 

^^^''^Resolved, That in the decease of the Honorable Increase Sumner, 



20 

the community is bereaved of a valued and honored citizen, and the 
Bar of one of its ablest members, and this Court of its first Chief Magistrate. 
For half a centuiy, nearly, he was a man of mark and commanding intluence, 
not in the town of his early adoption and long residence only, but throughout 
this community and wherever known. And dming the same period his 
career at the bar, m this his native county, suffers nothing in comparison 
with that of his distmguished compeers, Dwight, Briggs, Bymgton, Filley 
and Robmson, and others who have preceded him to the spirit land. 

' ' He by natui-e was fitted for prominence and a leader m any community 
and at any bar. 

" His efforts, whether before the jury or the Court, were always able, and 
at times rose to an eloquence rarely surpassed. His mtegrity was never 
questioned. He possessed great uidustry, logic and a somid judgment as 
well as eloquence, which, united with his characteristic fidelity and mvinci- 
ble will, achieved for him as a lawyer a position second to none m the history 
of the bar of Berkshire. He loved his profession, and practiced it with una- 
bated zeal to the very last of life, and died ripe ur years, havuig scarcely laid 
his brief aside. 

" E,ESOiiYP]D, That the decease of such a man, even though fuU of years 
and crowned with success, is no ordinary event, and well may we of the Bar 
surviving him study his example, if we would practice and emulate, his 
virtues. 

"RESOiiVKD, That wc extend to the widow, .and family of the deceased, 
oiu- hearty sympathies ; and that these resolutions be extended upon the 
records of this Court, and a copy thereof presented to his family. 

''Judge Bradford said that in compliance with the terms of the resolu- 
tions he would cause the same to be entered at once on the records of the 
Court, and a copy to be furnished to the family of the deceased. At the 
presentation of the resolutions, l^rief remarks were made by Mr. Wilcox only, 
it bemg the miderstanduig of the members of the bar present, that the death 
of Mr. Sumner would be made the occasion for a meetmg of the entire bar of 
the county, at which time all, individually l)y personal speech, and collect- 
ively by resolutions, could express their respect to the memory of Mr. Sum- 
ner, and their estimate of his character and work.'" 



JUDGE SUMNER'S DEATH. —THE DISTRICT COURT 
OF CENTRAL BERKSHIRE. 

News of the death of Judge Increase Sumner, of Great-Barrmgton was 
received in town on Saturday. The District Coiu't was in session, but on 
motion of T. P. Pingrec, Esq., it adjourned. The motion to adjourn was as 
follows : 

To Oie Honordhlc, the Dlslricl Courl of Ccnl ml Berkshire, i/s Judges 

and OJJicers : 

The decease of our honored and tlistinguished brother at the Bar, Increase 
Sumner of Great-Barruigton, the 27th uistant, calls for some token on our 
part, of respect to his memory, and grief for our loss, as the public's gene- 
rally, m the removal of so upright and able an officer of the Court, and such 
an example of integrity and faithfulness in the j^ractice of the profession of 
law, as also m its administration as "a Judge of a sister Court m this coiuity. 

Therefore, it is moved that this Coiu't do now adjourn, as an expression on 
its i>art, of the smcerity of respect and esteem entertamed for our late broth- 
er, and that this motion, with other expressions of like kind in writing, be 
placed on file and entered on the Docket. 

Pittsfield, January 80th, 1871. T. P. PING REE. 



21 



J, M. Barker, Esq. , in seconding the motion, said : 

It is with feeling's of prof oiind sadness, that I this morning, hear amiounced 
to yonr Honor the death of onr elder brother and leader. Increase Snmner, 
of Great-Barrmgton. Himself a wearer of the ennme, it is doubly titting 
that some record should be made in yonr Honor's Court, of the departure of 
so upright a judge, and so somid and able a lawyer. 

The Superior Courts of Judicature will claim the right to enroU ui)on their 
records, and the whole Bar to move the usual expressions of admiration for 
the man ; of regret at his loss, and of sympathy and condolence with the 
family of which he was the head. 

But it is right and proper for the District Court of Central Berkshire, to 
take official notice of the death of the Justice of its sister Court, and it is 
not ijrcsumptuous for the bar of the Covmty seat to add an exx^ression of 
their sorrow for the loss of the lawyer, whose acknowledged talent and ripe 
experience claimed and received our highest admii-ation and respect. It is 
not too much to say that for years our jimes have been accustomed to listen 
with dehght to his eloquence, our covu-ts to receive his words as caiTjing 
weighty sanction m the law, and ourselves to study his conduct and efforts 
at the bar, as our best examples of professional skill and leammg, while his 
large circle of clients ever found m his perfect mtegrity a siu'e protection. 

Judge Siimner died yesterday at his home m Great-Barrrngton. It is but 
a few weeks — a month ago to-day — that, called liy one thought of all to be 
President of oiu- Bar Association, he presided at our Ammal Dinner, filled 
with the enthusiasm and genius, which had made his name so widely known 
and honored. Now the flashing eye is closed forever, the shapely hand of 
the orator is still, and the venerable head laid low m death. But the bright 
soul fi-eed from the tenement of clay soars vmtrammeled, and the record of 
a life well spent remains as a legacy to us all. I have no qualification, may it 
please your Honor, which renders it proper for me to call your attention to 
our brother's death, excejit a deep respect and admiration for the deceased, 
and a lively gratitude for his uniform coiu-tesj^ to the young-er members of 
the bar, and I will therefore trespass no longer on your mdulgence, or that 
of my brothers, save to second the motion that a muiute of Judge Sumner's 
death be entered upon the record, and that the Court do stand adjourned in 
token of resjiect to his memoiy. 



SUPERIOR COURT PROCEEDINGS. 



At the February Term, 1871, of the Superior Court, in Pittsfield, appro- 
priate action was taken in regard to the death of the Hon. Increase Sumner 
of Great-Barrington, for forty-five years a member of the Berkshire Bar. 
The subjoined resolutions were presented : 

" At a meeting of the members of the Berkshu-e Bar, held this 28th day 
of February, 1871, Hemy W. Taft, Franklin O. Sayles, Wm. T. Filley, Mar- 
shall Wilcox and Justin Dewey, Jr. , were appointed a Committee to prepare 
suitable resolutions to be presented to the Superior Court now in session, 
upon the occasion of the recent death of the Hon. Increase Sumner, late of 
Great-Bariington. And in discharge of that duty the Committee present to 
the Court the following resolutions : 

" Resolved, That the members of the Berkshire Bar, while humbly ac- 
knowledging the wisdom and kindness of all the dispensations of Divine 
Pro^ddence, desire here to express and record their profound sorrow, that 
death has deprived them of the counsels and companionship of their brother, 
so recently deceased, the Hon. Increase Sumner of Great-Barrington. 



22 

" Resolved, That resolutions such as these, proper to be adopted when 
any member of the Bar passes away from the earthly fellowship of his breth- 
ren, may well be attended with an expression of peculiar regard and affec- 
tionate respect, when one like Mr. Sumner has taken leave of his profession 
and his life at the same time, after an almost entire devotion to the duties 
of that profession, for a period of forty-five years, discharging those duties 
alwaj^s with fidelity, industry, and extraordinary gifts of intellect and elo- 
quence. 

'' Resolved, That the career of our late associate, in many respects, may 
well be referred to, as an example to young men of our honorable profession, 
and of every profession and occupation — particularly as showing the impor- 
tant and comforting truth, that mherited wealth is not necessary to success 
in life — but that industry and a resolute will can more than supply its place. 

''Resolved, That we respectfully request of the Honorable Charles 
Devens, Jr., the Judge presiding at this term, to allow these resolutions 
to be placed upon the records of the Court, and to direct that a copy thereof, 
attested by the Clerk, may be transmitted to the widow and family of the 
deceased." 

These resolutions, at the request of the Committee, were presented by 
Judge Julius Rockwell, with the following remarks, in substance: 
May it please the Court : 

I most willingly follow the suggestion of the Committee of the Berkshire 
Bar, and present the resolutions which I have just read. I ask leave also, 
from my place at the Bar, which I occupied so many pleasant years, in the 
company of our deceased friend and brother, to speak a few words expressive 
of kindly and admiring memories of him. 

According to the law, and the customs of those times. Increase Sumner 
was admitted an Attorney in the Court of Common Pleas, in 1825 ; an At- 
torney in the Supreme Judicial Court in 1828 ; and a Counsellor in 1830. 
Since the latter period, I have known him and his professional life and char- 
acter. But it was in January, 1834, that we met in Boston as members of 
the House of Representatives. It was my first and his second year in the 
House. We took rooms together during that session, and became intimately 
acquainted. His experience was of essential service to me at that time, as 
his legal learning and experience have aided me on many occasions since. 

As our lives advanced, we became separated in political opinions, and were 
repeatedly the candidates of the rival pai-ties for the same offices. I was 
sometimes employed in cases in the courts with him, but more frequently, 
on the opposmg side : and by speech and writmg we have had some contests, 
arousing fully whatever of energy and ability we possessed. Yet, so far as I 
know, neither in the political field, nor in the courts, have our differences 
ever wrought any, except merely the temporary estrangement of an hour. I 
am therefore but domg for him to-day, what I am sure he would have done 
for me if I had died and he had lived. Alas, the Httle that I can do— the 
little that I can reproduce from his ardent and laborious career, so conspicu- 
ous in this community for more than forty years ! 

To understand the professional and personal character of Mr. Sumner, it 
is necessary, I thmk, to recall the memory of the members of the Bar of this 
County, at the time of his entrance into this arena. He came to Great-Bar- 
rington to practice law, and he found the professional field there and 
throughout the County fully occupied. John Whiting and James B. Hyde, 
at Great-Barrington ; Robert F. Barnard, Edward F. Ensign and Parker L. 
Hall, at Sheffield; Benjamin Sheldon, at New Marlborough; Thomas Twin- 
ing, at Sandisfield ; Lester Filley, at Otis ; William Porter, at Lee ; Henry 
W. Dwight, Samuel Jones and Horatio Byington, at Stockbridge ; Robbins 
Kellogg, at West Stockbridge ; Henry W. Bishop and George J. Tucker, at 
Lenox; Henry Hubbard, Calvm Martin, Luther Washburn, Matthias R. 
Lanckton and Thomas A. Gold, at Pittsfield; Hemy Marsh, at Dalton ; 



23 

Aiio>. n+ TTirmdale • Geome N. Briggs and Calvin Hubbell, at Lanes- 
Thomas AUen at Hhis^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ 3 Penmman at 

borough; Thomas iioDinson,!^^ at Williamstown, were all m 

Adams ; Darnel ^ oble ^^^1 ^am^^ N- ^"^^J^ ,^, ^,,^es of soi^e who have 
legal practice at that time ana ^j^^J . , ^tering the profession, 

passed into other '^^ff^^^^f^o se^^^^^^^ honors 1.nd emoluments 

profitable cases m this County Henry W. Dwigiit was the 

eloquence and addi-ess^^^^^^^ ^^ j„a„, b„„op 

friend saw the destiny ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ was ^o ^^J^^^^^^ ^f ^ collegiate educa- 
knew that he --f P^^/^^^^ ,vho imde'ttf those advantages, nor by 
tion. He was not one of the ^^^ J^« .^^^^ ^^^ ,^ef ects of early trammg 
any means was he one ot l^5,e ^^^•;! ; ^ ^ j.^^, and he knew it 

'' '^ t Hen ?orSs1.IuTOses Td he sltie^^ know just as well that in- 
was sufficient toi ms purposes , .lu • -, . enable him to secure the 

domitable will and mdustry would ^e requned *« ^na^^ .^ ^^^^^i^e.^ 

share which he wallted--^vhlch^^^^^^^^ g-^^^ - %,,^,,,^ of the 

and popular consideration of the conimmnty^ determination to overcome 
difficulties to be o^'^rcome. and his mttex b^^^^^^^ and secured for 

them, gave the tone and character to ^^ P^^^^^^J^^^^^^^^ ^ne of the Jus- 
him a great P-f-^-trS^e c'o^^^ -th me when I 

tices of the Supreme ^o|v^*^<^'^;^-™;'^^ ^^bo met Mr. Sumkeh in op- 

nesses was a power m his hands, ^f^^^^ iu?? eSted Mr Sumner as a 
but I suppose his <^'o^^S^'S---^^J^l%^7, l^he most favorable light, 
man and as a ^er, and as ^^ ^ «J^^f ^^^P"^^^^^^^^ to the commencement of 
In the preparation aaicl ^^^^^^^l^^n^'Z^^^^^^ identified himself with 
his argument, he naci ^^"^"'^'*'^''^ ,^,,^ . _j >,,„ oimonent's case, wherever 
his client and his interests, ^^^f^ ^^^/^^f ^f^^f p^efe^C to caiiy the battle, 
he could find an assailable pomt of ^^^y^^'\Xenh^rose to his argument, 
if possible, into the enemy^ 00^^^^^^^ ^, th, case and 

he commenced ^^«Xn developed his theory in regard to it, and supported 

t^i STfe^olXand *Xr;o:v;;^%-sion, upon the i^ ^. 
the audience. integritv imder all circumstances, and to 



24 

generally coiTect anticipations of the final decision of tlie Court. He was 
then able, as I thoiig-ht, to lay off the lawyer and put on the judg-e, and I was 
not surprised to find in his brief judicial experience, near the close of his life, 
he evinced admirable qualities in settlmg- questions both of law and of fact. 

Mr. Summer was always mdustrious. He filled up all his leisure time. 
While attending- the Legislature, and the Constitutional Convention of 1853, 
I observed that his mind was constantly active. He remembered history 
and biogTaphy with accuracy, and he read and appreciated poetry, with a 
taste which became hig-hly cu.ltivated. He was fond of genealogical research- 
es, and remembered their facts with wonderful accuracy. 

Whenever it was announced that he was to deliver an address, upon any 
public occasion, a full and attentive audience was insured. I well recollect 
his address before the Berkshire Agricultural Society, full of noble senti- 
ments and eloquent passages. Especially do I remember his address, a few 
years smce, before the Berkshire Bible Society. It was a model speech, and 
certainly left no doubt of his assured faith in evangelical religion. 

But, brethren of the Bar, what need of more words ? He has left us, and 
the few remaining men of his generation are soon to leave you. Nearly all 
those whose names I have recoimtcd are gone. With them have gone the 
Judges of those Courts, upon whom we used to look as pillars which were 
never to decay. With them has gone Ciiakt.es Sedgwick, the all accom- 
plished Clerk of these Courts — whose mind was as clear as his heart was 
land — and whose words and letters remain to us. 

In response to the request to allow the resolutions to be placed on record, 
His Honor, Judge Devens, briefly expressed his concurrence in and approval 
of the ceremony of manifesting the esteem of the Bar for one who had so 
long filled a large space in the courts and practice in the County. Twenty 
3^ears ago he had quite intimately known the deceased, who was then Dis- 
trict Attorney for the District compriskig the four western counties. He 
knew him as an able advocate, a wise counsellor, and an industrious, honest, 
courageous member of the profession. His acquaintance and knowledge of 
Mr. Sumner were such that he knew him to be worthy the eulogies of his 
brethren, and in respect to the deceased he would adjourn the court. 

Judge Colt, Rev. Dr. Todd, and other prominent citizens and professional 
gentlemen from all parts of the county, were present, and there were other 
speeches and eulogies ready for delivery, but the adjournment came while 
the lawyers were modestly waiting, one for another, to pay their respects, 
and many kindly and good words were left unsaid. 



BANQUET OF THE BEEKSHIRE BAR. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

PiTTSFiELD, December 5tli, 1870. 
Biio. SiMNKU: 

At the close of the late Court, several members of the bar 
met and had a very pleasant social meeting-. We then resolved to invite a 
meeting of the Bar, and to have a Bar Duiner at the American House on the 
■^Bth inst. , and with one accord it was agreed that you should be solicited to 
preside over the festivities. Your long standing and eminent position at our 
Bar, induced us wdth hearty unanimity to soUcit your attendance as the pre 
siding officer of the meeting. There is no reason why we may not have a 
profitable time, and one that may stimid.ate us all to emulate and sustain the 
good rei>utation which the profession in this County has at all times hereto- 
tofore sustained. We hope you will favor us with yoiu- presence. Enclosed 
please find a circular which has been prepared and forwarded to the mem- 
bers throughout the Count}''. We address you as a committee of the late 
meeting, specially authorized. Hoping you will find it convenient to attend, 
we remain yours. c"cc. . MARSHALL WILCOX, 

S. W. BOWERMAX. 



Gueat-Barkikgton, Dec. 10th, 1870. 
Hon. Messrs. Wilcox and Boivennan, Committee of the Berkshire Bar : 
My Brothers: — The happy thought of having a social gathering of the 
Bar of this County, and an appropriate festival, as suggested in your kind 
letter of in\dtation to me, is exceedingly gratifying, and if I can in any way 
aid, I shall most cheerfully do so. As well the resident members of the Bar, 
as also those who have gone out from us, and reside elsewhere, I should 
hope might be solicited and induced — with other distinguished guests — to 
attend. In this connection I might recite many honorable names, but will 
4 



26 

mention one — William C. Bryant. He practiced at our bar, I think, from 
1816 to 1825, with distinction and success, and then retired from legal prac- 
tice, and removed from Massachusetts to occupy his present field of renown. 
So long as "Monument Mountain" stands, or the "G-reen River" flows along 
its beautiful banks, his name in Berkshire will be remembered and honored. 
Of those who have practiced at our bar, he is, I am quite sure, the eldest 
survivor. His presence at our proposed meeting is certainly greatly desira- 
ble. Aside from those who are, or have been members of our bar, are many 
who having here finished their preparatory legal studies, left for other sec- 
tions of our country and have risen to be the pride and ornament of our pro- 
fession abroad at the Bar, and many of them upon the Judicial seat. Their 
presence with us would be highly gratifying. And I hope most earnestly, 
that all the brethren now of our county, will by no means fail of attend- 
ance. Collectively speaking, it may well be said of the members of the 
Berkshire Bar, they need not be afraid or ashamed to have their fellow-citi- 
zens look upon them, whether at the bar or the banquet, for they have never 
wronged their noble profession. 

With sentiments of great respect, 

Very truly yours, 

I. SUMNER. 



BANQUKT OF THE BERKSHIRE BAR. 

The f ollowdng account of the Banquet of the Berkshire Bar, referred to in 
the foregoing correspondence, which took place December 27th, 1870, and 
M^as the occasion of the last meeting of Judge Sumner with his professional 
brethren, is taken from the Berkshire Courier of Janu.ary 11th, 1871 : 

" The meeting and festival of the Berkshire Bar, as arranged, took place 
last week Monday, at the American House, Pittsfield. Before dinner — 
which was at 5 p. m., — most of the members of the bar convened and formed 
an association, one object of which is an annual meeting to be held on the 
last Wednesday of December. The ofiicers of the association are Judge 
Sumner of Great Barrington, President; H. J. Bliss, Esq. of Adams, Vice 
President ; and James M. Barker, Esq., of Pittsfield, Secretary. About sixty 
were at this dimmer, including invited gaiests, amongst whom were Rev. 
Doctors Todd and Strong of Pittsfield ; Hon. W. G. Bates and District At- 
torney Gillett, of Westfield ; Doctor Sabin of Williamstown ; F. Chamber- 
lin, Esq. , of Hartford, and others. The tables were spread wdth great ele- 
gance, and the provision was most sumptuous — nothing seemed to be omitted. 
The feast at the table being over, the intellectual feast began. Several letters 
were read from gentlemen unable to give their personal attendance. Judge 
Sunmer made the opening speech. His topic was ' The f ovmders of the 
Berkshire Bar.' He presented Berkshire as being before 1761, a part of the 
county of ' Old Hampshire,' — a fact we should ever be proud to hold in remem- 
brance. The Hampshire Bar had existence certainly as soon as 1686. Much 



27 

irregnlarity in legal practice in the early days prevailed. People then had 
crude ideas as to the legal profession or judicial proceedings. Judges, in fact 
were appointed, not because they were learned in the law, but — so it would 
seem — because they were not learned. Legal learning, instead of being 
sought was condemned. It almost appeared as though the purpose was to 
carry suits not in compliance with law, but against it. This state of things 
continued till past the close of the first quarter of the last century — a new 
scene was then to open. We are aware that in the fomiation of institutions 
from household to kingdom, certaia idiosjmcracies, capacities, instincts are 
most surely created, which continue in perhaps endless perpetuity. 
Hence peculiar family traits are exhibited through successive generations. 
The traveller of to-day who visits, for instance Germany, hears the same 
grand old mother tongue which Luther spoke, meets with the same love of 
poetry and song, and all learning which distinguished that land ages ago. 
The similar strains of the bag-pipe — the pibroch or war-song — which roused 
the clansmen of Roderick Dhu, fall yet in gi'ateful cadence upon the Scottish 
ear. Men pass away, but their successors retain the identity of things as left 
to them. So in the founding of an institution or association like a law bar ; 
the properties appertaining to its origin may last long after its founders are 
gone, for their place may be filled and well filled by a long line of successors. 
Can we not be permitted to say such is the fact in regard to the Berkshire 
Bar? 

"Who, then, were the founders of this bar ? More than one hundred 
years ago, before oiu- county was formed, a reform of old Hampshire bar 
occurred, and therefrom as a consequence this bar originated. Phineas Ly- 
man and two of his pupils, viz. : John Worthington and Joseph Hawley were 
the reformers. Lyman began practice as early as 1743. He was a lawyer of 
learning and ability, and acquired extensive practice. Worthington was of 
Springfield, bom in 1 719, graduated at Yale in 1740, and commenced practice 
in Springfield in 1744. He was a splendid man, of eminent learning and a 
finished advocate. By the royal governor of our Massachusetts pro\^ce, in 
1769, the office of Attorney General was tendered to him, but he did not ac- 
cept. He died in 1800. Hawley was born in Northampton in 1724, gradu- 
ated at Yale in 1742, and began the practice of law in his native tovm. He 
was an able lawyer in all respects, a most worthy man and a distmguished 
patriot. He was the compeer of the Adamses and Hancock. Judge S. read 
extracts from a letter of his to John Adams, then in the Continental Congress, 
written in the fall of 1774, replete wath ardent patriotic sentiments. This let- 
ter Mr. Adams, on its reception, read to Patrick Henry — it roused him to ex- 
claim with great emphasis: 'I'm of that man's mind!' Henry's celebrated 
speech, concluding with 'Give me Hberty or give me death,' was made the 
Spring after. Who can say — said Judge Sumner — but that the inspirmg el- 
oquence of that speech may in a measure, at least, have been caused by the 
inspiring sentiments in Hawley' s letter ? In all important trials, Worthington 
and Hawley were employed. Their great learning, probity and skill taught 
their fellow- citizens new lessons in regard to legal practice, and the legal pro- 
fession. Reform was the result. It was a happy memorial of these two 



28 

men, that old Hampshire caused to be named after them, two of her towns — ■ 
Hawley and Worthington. 

This part of Hampshire — our Berkshire — was then being peopled, and 
two lawyers of the Hampshii-e bar, John Ashley and John Huggins, 
both men of probity, learning and extensive practice, cotemporaries of 
Worthington and Hawley, settled in Sheffield. Ashley graduated at Yale 
in 1730, was admitted to the bar in 1782, and died in 1803, at the age 
of 93. He was largely interested in lands of the lower Housatonic proprie- 
tary. They had not the commanding influence at the bar as had Worthing- 
ton and Hawley, but they were worthy coadjutors with them. They deserve 
to be named with them as reformers of the Hampshire, and founders of the 
Berkshire Bar. Our record of Huggins is scanty ; we know he was in prac- 
tice as early as 1743, was skillful, educated and of good repute. The only 
other lawyer in Berkshire, in 1761, was Mark Hopkins of Great-Barrington, of 
whose talents and patriotism Judge S. spoke at some length. Pre-eminently 
did he deserve to be accredited as one of the founders of our bar. He prob- 
ably read law under Worthington ; he was a kinsman of Mrs. W. He ad- 
vanced in kicrative practice, and into the great confidence and esteem of the 
community. Withal he was a patriot of the first rank. When the revolution 
opened — opening as it did in gloom — he laid down his pen, girded on his 
sword, left the bar and repaired to the field. His position was that of Colo- 
nel. He went to "White Plains, sickened, and in October 1776, two days be- 
fore the battle, died. He was the grandfather of the distinguished Presi- 
dent, and one of the Professors of Williams CoUege. 

Judge S. also alluded to Judge Sedgwick, who studied law under Mark 
Hopkins, and continued his remarks at length, the foregoing being but an 
imperfect sketch. Capital speeches were made by Lieutenant-Governor 
Tucker, Judge Colt, Congressman Dawes, Hon. W. G. Bates, District At- 
torney Gillette, Henry W. Taft, Rev. Drs. Todd and Strong, Hons. H. L. 
Sabin and R. Goodman, and others, and a fine poem was delivered by F. O. 
Sayles, Esq. The proceedings terminated at a late hour. We append the 
letter of W. C. Bryant, written in answer to an invitation to be present : 

"New York, December 14th, 1870, 
" Deah Sir : — I thank the members of the Berkshire Bar for their kind 
invitation to be present at their social meeting and dinner on the 28th inst. 
My nine years of practice at that bar were a useful mental discipline to me, 
however imperfectly tm-ned to account, and my residence in your beautiful 
county was a most fortunate event of my life. It would give me j)leasure to 
meet with those who have taken the place of the generation of lawyers to 
which I belonged, but several engagements require me to remain here and 
content myself with "washing you all a meeting of which you will long retain 
a pleasant memory. 

•' I am sir, very truly and respectfully yours, 

•' VV. C. BRYANT. 
" JamesM. Barker, Esq., Secretary, ttc, etc." 



DEDICATION SEEVICES. 



From the Pittsfleld Sun, July 5th, 1871. 

DEDICATION OF THE JULIA SUMNER MEMORIAL 

HALL. 

Our readers are aware that at the time of Ms death, Judge Increase 
Sumner had nearly completed a handsome four-story brick building in the 
central block of the village of Great-BaiTington, the upper portion of which 
was designed for a Musical HaU. On his dying bed he said to his eldest son, 
Samuel— the only child present when the venerable man expired— that the 
Hall was to be Memorial ; to be caUed '' The Julia Sumner Hall," di- 
recting that it be dedicated ^^ath rehgious ceremonies. In fuhillment of 
Judge Sumner\s ^dll on the subject, the dedication appomtment for the eve- 
nmg of June 28th (last Wednesday evening), was made. 

THE HALL 

is an elegant assembly room, capable of comfortably seating five hvmdred per- 
sons The provision for ventilation and heating is abimdant, and of the most 
approved modem contrivance. The experience of the evening demonstrated 
that the acoustic properties of the place are perfect-both audience and 
speakers testif :ying to this mam point of excellence in the Hall. Notwithstand- 
ing the heat of the evening -which was excessive-the atmosphere was not less 
fresh and cool in than out of the Hall. The gas hghts were of such number 
and character, and so admirably amanged, that the finest print could be 
equally well read m any seat. The entrance from the ground is by a flight 
of stairs leading up the centre of the buildmg ; the immediate entrance being 
by steps from the west end of the second story passage-way, which lead to a 
mid-way platform, from which, on either hand, the Hall is reached by a half- 
story flight At the east end of the Hall, is a platfomi about three feet high 
and twelve feet square. On this occasion, immediately in the rear and aboiit 
eight feet above the platfonn was suspended a beautiful portrait of Judge 
Sumner, painted by the celebrated artist, Mr. Ciu-tis of Bridgeport, Conn. 
This portrait is an excellent likeness of Judge Sttmner, as he appeared ten 



30 

years ago — and as we gazed upon the painting, in which the features of the 
wonderfully handsome old man are depicted with rare artistic skill, we could 
not do other\Adse than recall many a court scene in which he bore the prom- 
inent part, and in which he manifested a power of logic and of eloquence 
such as is rarely exhibited m any tribunal of justice. And, furthermore, it 
occurred to us, that our bar would only be paying a proper testimonial to 
the memory of such a lawyer, if they procured a copy of this pamting and 
placed it in the new Court House. Beneath the portrait of Judge Sumner — 
was a large "touched" photograph of the beloved daughter, " JuLiA," 
after whom the Hall is named. 

THE AUDIENCE, AND THE SPEAKERS. 

A brief paragraph in the Courier of Wednesday, of the previous week, was 
the only advertisement we saw of the Memorial Exercises that were to take 
place; and that simply annoimced the purpose, and extended a general invi- . 
tation. It seemed to us that the notice was msufRcient, as it certainly was 
very modest. It was announced that the exercises would commence pre- 
cisely at 8 o'clock ; and as we had been incidentally assured by many persons 
that there would be " plenty of room" we made no haste "to be there "— 
arriving at the street door at a quarter to 7. We found the passage-way com- 
pletely packed with persons anxious to obtain an entrance to the Hall ; ush- 
ers at the mid stairway landing occasionally shouting down the assurance 
that they were trying to make as much standing room as possible. We were 
about taking our departure in a spirit of great disappointment, when the 
agent in charge of the building, Mr. F. T. Whiting, recognized and seized us, 
and informed us that an eligible seat had been reserved on our account. We 
were duly installed in our " reserve," where we had twenty minutes in 
which to note some of the items already recorded, before the exercises com- 
menced. We should note also that the platform had been temporarily ex- 
tended on the right of the permanent stage, so as to furnish room for a piano 
and a large cabinet organ. As we have indicated, the Hall was crowded to ex- 
cess, it being estimated by the ushers that there were about six hundred per- 
sons in the audience — several hundred coming to the street entrance and be- 
ing obliged to retire, for lack of even standing accommodations. (We have 
been informed that it is in contemplation to build a horse-shoe gallery at the 
western end of the Hall — thus affording seats for 150 more persons. ) Shortly 
after we entered the Hall, the noise attendant upon taking seats subsided — 
as all the seats were occupied, and standing room was not obtainable. The 
audience silently gazed upon the portraits of the once familiar faces — the 
father and daughter — the shadows of whose remarkably pleasing counte- 
nances looked down upon us (if we may so write) from the centre line of the 
eastern wall. Precisely at 8 o'clock there was a buzz of announcement : the 
widow and the three sons of the deceased Judge entered the Hall. Mrs. 
Sumner is the second wife of the Judge, and the step-mother of "the boys." 
She took a seat in the third row of settees from the platform, while " the 
boys " — as we heard every one around us call them— proceeded on and took 
their places on the platform : Samuel B. , of Bridgeport, and Charles A. and 



31 

Albert I., of San Francisco, California. The Rev. Evarts Scudder, Congre- 
gational, the Rev. Dr. Olmstead, Episcopal, and the Rev. Mr. Akerly, the 
Methodist clergyman of the town, were then invited to occupy assigned 
places on the stage. At ten minutes past eight the exercises began with an 
original Voluntary by Prof. Albert I. Sumner. But before we comment up- 
on the exercises, we wall give the programme, as follows : 

ORDER OF EXERCISES. 

-^ 1. Voluntary on the Organ— original. Albert I. Sumner. 

3. Prayer, by Rev. Evarts Scudder. 

8. Requiem- — Piano — original. Albert I. Sumner. 
.» 4. lutroductorj^ remarks. Samuel B. Sumner. 

~- 5. Hymn— original. Samuel B. Sumner. 

— 6. Memorial Address. Charles A. Sumner. 

7. "Separation'' — Piano — original. Albert I. Sumner. 

8. Doxolog}^ 

The musician of the family, Albert I. , has already obtained considerable 
celebrity as a composer of Organ and Piano Music ; and both as a composer 
and performer we had direct and most pleasing evidence of his ability during 
the evening. His '' Voluntary'''' on the Organ was a fit prelude to the ser- 
vices which were to follow ; but it was left for his Requiem to develop his 
positive genius for appropriate musical composition. 

The prayer by Rev. Evarts Scudder was a choicely-worded appeal for the 
Divine blessing upon the family of the deceased, upon the community in 
which they were again assembled from afar, and upon the meetings that 
hereafter may be held in the structure they were to dedicate. 

The introductory remarks by Samuel B. Sumner were apt and impressive. 
He briefly recounted the circumstances connected with the planning and 
erection of the builduig, and in most affecting tones related the dying father's 
directions to his " dear boys," as he called them, " concerning the dedica- 
tion of the Hall." In obedience to the father's express mandate, and in 
conformity with the inclinations of the sons, no entertaiament was to be per- 
mitted in the building, at which a young lady of refined and cultivated tastes, 
like Julia Sumner, might not properly attend— at which she might not have 
laudably desired to be present. Since one of the sons had last taken his de- 
parture for his distant home, in CaUfomia, sister and father had passed 
away ; and it was thought eminently proper that he should* give the formal, 
extended exj^ression to the suggestions and sympathies that pertained to the 
occasion. 

The following Hymn was then sung; — almost the entire audience, appa- 
rently, participating in the singing : 

HYMN— BY SAMUEL B. SUMNER. Air—Greeuville. 

Now let gentle memory lead us, 

AMiile this hour our thoughts recall 
Forms of loved ones who precede us 

Whither we are hastening all ; 
Weak we know our best endeavor. 

'Gainst the Lethean wave to strive. 
Still with human fondness ever, 

Would we keep our dead aUve. 



32 

His behest this hour obeying". 

Who for sake of memory dear. 
Crowned an earnest life, essaying- 

These memorial walls to rear ; 
Thus we gather, while we listen 

To familiar tones of yore, 
And while eyes in sadness glisten, 

Here to glisten nevermore ! 

Side by side they now are sleeping-. 

Sire and daughter, in the tomb ; 
Kindred from afar stand weeping-. 

And all hearts are filled with gloom ; 
She in womanhood's first dawning, 

He of ripe three score and ten. 
Both lie waiting- that brig-ht morning. 

When God's own shall wake again. 

'Neath the flow'rets o'er them blooming — 

Summer's verdure, winter's snows — 
Only Faith our souls illuming, 

We must leave them in repose. 
So, wherever God shall call us, 

Wide world o'er, oixr lines to cast. 
And whatever fate iDefall us. 

Death shall claim us all at last ! 

Father, sister, our sad pleasure. 

With fi'aterual. filial care. 
This fair cenotaph to treasui'e. 

So its walls your names shall bear ; 
And when loved ones gone before us. 

Wave for us their welcome wands, 
Each and all, may God restore us, 

To the " House not made with hands." 

It is impossible for us to give even a satisfactory sketch of the Memorial 
Address, by Charles A. Sumner, which followed the singing of the Hymn. 
He commenced at a quarter to 9 o'clock, and concluded at 20 minutes to 11. 
It is sufficient compliment to the speaker, undoubtedly, to say that the at- 
tention paid was absorbing and almost breathless. The orator at first, by a 
few touches, carried his auditors back to the Barrington of forty-five years 
ago, and then introduced his father as the attorney successor of WiUiam Cullen 
Bryant, and the youthful colleague of the renowned Gen. Whiting. He gave 
what he termed '' ghmpses" of the biography and characteristics of the fa- 
ther, illustrating some remarkable peculiarities of the man, with well-au- 
thenticated anecdotes — names and localities being given in every instance. 
Then refenring to the death -bed directions concerning the dedication of the 
Hall, the orator passed on to a very entertaining sketch of the life and char- 
acter of Julia E. Sumner — the daughter, of great gifts and accompHsh- 
ments, whose brilliant "promise," acknowledged by all acquaintances, was, 
alas ! unfulfilled, because the enemy. Death, prevailed when she was 
at the early age of 24 years. The speaker then briefly, but forcibly, 
presented what he considered the leading trait of both father and child, 
which was most beneficial in the community ; and the points in their exam- 



33 

pie most worthy of imitation. At one period of his address, he dealt in 
some caustic illustrations concerning the " .^war/ girls of the period" — (of 
which he averred Julia Sumner was not) — which provoked demonstrations 
of applause and merriment, despite the known seriousness and solemnity 
which belonged to the object of the meeting. The address contained many 
points of philosophical suggestion and reasoning, and it \%all unquestionably 
be read with profound interest, if it is published, on accormt of its personal 
and its general historical information, and its original deductions concerning 
character and influence. When the orator retired, the audience could not be 
restrained from indulging in long continued applause. 

At the close of the address, Mr. Samuel B. Sumner thanked the audience 
for their attendance and attention ; Prof. Albert I. Sumner played his origi- 
nal and exquisite composition, '' Separation,'" on the Piano : the Doxologj' 
was sung, and the audience dismissed with the Benediction, pronoimced by 
Rev. Dr. Olmstead. 

We congratulate our neighbors upon the construction of such an elegant 
Hall in their midst, and upon its dedication in a form and by peculiar and 
eloquent services, which will long be among the cheiished memories of citi- 
zens of Southern Berkshire. 

5 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



MEMORIAL A D D E E W 8 

UY 

CHARLES A. SUMNER, 

OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 



Forty -live years ago the village of* Great-Barriiigton contained a 
population of ahont 400 souls. The old-fasliioned, gable roofed 
bouses that stood on either side of the one broad shaded street 
leading from the bend of the Housatonic, at the southern edge of 
what is now called Water street to the foot of Mount Peter and 
onward, all possessed an historic interest ; and in the bar-rooui of 
the tavern that was situated nearly opposite to this place of assem- 
bly, curious stories were? nightly told in regard to tlie British troop- 
ers' occupancy of those humble but spacious dwellings. These 
tales have become traditions — if not regarded as legendary — and 
only three of the primitive mansions, and they somewhat modern- 
ized, remain to speak to us of the verity of those now rarely- 
repeated records of Rev(dutionary days. 

Forty-five years ago John Quincy Adams was President of the 
United States, and Levi Lincoln Governor of the Commonwealtli 
of Massachusetts. Forty-five years ago General Whiting, an attor- 
ney and counsellor, distinguished not only throughout the County, 
but the Commonwealth, had his office at the junction of Main and 
Castle streets, and with clients attending from all portions of the State 
west of the Connecticut, was absorbed in a large and very profita- 



38 

ble jDractice. William Cullen Bryant was also a lawyer, resident 
in tliis village forty-five years ago. Unhappily, disgusted with 
the verdict against his client in an important suit, he, at the date 
to which we refer, determined to remove from this place to New 
York City — there to engage in the more congenial, and as it proved 
to him, far more lucrative business of superintending the publica- 
tion of a daily journal. At that date a young man of twenty-four 
years of age, who had run a " collegiate course of three months" — 
as he was wont to term it — " in a log school house in Bethlehem ;" 
who had educated himself from that graduation so that he became 
competent to teach in the country ; who with his $S per month 
earnings on the farm and in the school-room, aided a little by the 
contributions and much by the cheering encouragement and coun- 
sel of an elder brother, had articled himself to Lester Filley, Esq., 
of Otis, and devoted five years to the study of the legal standards 
in that gentleman's library — a few months in each year still being 
occupied with teaching service in the rural districts, — at that date 
this young man, having learned of the vacancy about to be created 
by the departure of Mr. Bryant, and wooed to the selection, it may 
be, by attractions which were not of a professional character, with 
only a pine-tree shilling in his pocket, crossed the mountain, and 
came down into this village, and commenced the practice of law in 
Great-Barrington. There are, I presume, some persons present who 
can look back through all this vista of years with uninterrupted 
vision, and bear testimony, step by step, as the perfect chronicler 
recites the prominent incidents in the life we are to briefly contem- 
plate to-night. Here and there, to-night, it is our privilege, in 
response to an undoubted desire on your part and with reverent 
affection for ourselves, to sketch a scene and dwell upon a charac- 
teristic. 

All the earliest home cotemporaries of our father tell us that his 
advent created something of an excitement in the society of our vil- 
lage ; and the young man was thoroughly inquii'ed about and looked 
over by the good people who formed the acknowledged aristocracy 



39 

of the town. And immediately after liis settlement, his abilities, 
his peculiarities, and the future of which he gave promise, were 
topics for general gossip. And by and by it became subject of 
friendly remark that he manifested a decided partiality for an after- 
noon and twilight walk to the old red house, and a rest under the 
famous horse chestnut tree that stood in the yard beside the old red 
house situated on what is now the Dr. Collins' homestead, — then 
occupied by the widow and children of Dr. Samuel Barstow. 

But I do not intend to trespass upon your patience with a bio- 
graphical record ; which would be imperfect, and to many of you 
suggestive of more interesting points than those presented. Enough 
to throw your minds back to the year 1825 ; and more or less, as 
we are individually able, to realize the time that has passed, the 
length and breadth of the years that compose the citizenship and 
professional career in Great-Barrington of Increase Sumner. 

It is a long while ago, my friends. The population of the Uni- 
ted States was then less than ten millions ; there was not a mile of 
railroad in the country, and it was then more than ten years prior 
to the invention of the telegraph. And after ten j-ears' absence 
your children come back to you hardly recognizable, with their 
added weight of days marked upon their countenances and indicat- 
ed in their altered voices and sobered mien. 

If in this period of time a man that has lived and served in the 
same village and occupied a prominent position by his works, is 
not thoroughly understood by his intelligent neighbors, there must 
be singularities about him which defy the power of human scruti- 
ny. In the crowded city the public servant may be imperfectly 
known to his most intimate associates ; for the opportunities to 
closely observe even a character that is absolutely free in its devel- 
opment are oftentimes wanting in such a place. There men " touch 
and go" and leave no certain and full picture on the memory of the 
nearest acquaintance. In most respects, my friends, the majority of 
persons before me must have understood the man of whom I am 
speaking as completeh^ as it is possible for those outside of his fami- 



40 

ly-circle to have coniprehended his nature and motives. Therefore, 
what may be properly said to-niglit in review of In's life will meet 
with your concurrenec from an actual recollection, and be carried 
out in your minds with illustrations that are all your own. And 
here the words may be spoken which are fit and proper onh^ 
in such a presence and on such an occasion ; here these words will 
not render us amenable to any char<^'e oi- susjiicion of egotism or 
foolish pride. Let us proceed. 

Much of that I am about to say is necessarily and gratefully 
drawn from the general testimon}^ which man}^ of you have inci- 
dentally given long ago, concerning the strength and struggles and 
triumphs of the man. 

There was a quality and haliit common to the American 
youth of those days, of which more is now sung but less 
practically known. A Peesevertng Industry distinguish- 
ed the life we commemorate, in a remarkable degree. His 
ambition, which was avowed and ardent, had no fanciful or 
hap-hazard phases. Confident in his abilities without conceit, 
he was yet ever most reliant upon the valor and virtue of 
hard work. AVhen Stephen Cone gave him his first impor- 
tant case he sat down and investigated every point with such an 
amount of patient toil, and brought forth an argument which evinced 
such great labor as well as good judgment, that his earliest, promi- 
nent patron had to make it known to all his friends that his 
suit had been gained by a young attorney who omitted nothing that 
could have the least weight in the trial, but pressed every fact 
with discriminating zeal ; — who obtained not only the verdict of 
the jury for his client but evoked the imusual and inadvertent 
compliment of the judge that instructed the panel. The industry 
that may be said to have been relentless in its character was ex- 
hibited in this man's career ; and he was entitled to encourage 
his fellow-men — as he often did — with admonitions and appeals in 
behalf of the dignity of labor, as comparatively few men now are 
authorized to exhort in this indeed busv but far less earnest-work- 



41 

mg world of ours. For liis profession liis preparation was strong, 
and tlie fundamental requisite of a disposition and determination 
for labor was ever-present with the man. 

But mere diligence can achieve but little at the best ; the meas- 
ure of success that is notable in the profession named must depend 
upon the rarer gifts of nature. There ma}^ be a prominence in 
political life obtained through adventitious circumstances or l)y arts 
that are mean and discreditable; but the solid respect of the world 
must b( acquired by faithful and unremitting labor in the legal 
profession, by the man of high mental endowments. The habit of 
industry may be cultivated to a great extent, and perhaps may be 
said to be planted in natures originally predisposed to utter slothful- 
ness. But, poiver of mental concentration is a faculty of real genius. 
Not merely to work all the minutes of an hour and all the work- 
ing hours of a day, but to labor straight towards an object and for 
the accomplishment of the purpose first had in view, — this is the 
cunning of business. There are those who severely bend every 
energy they have under a resolution to perform certain deeds and 
secure certain results ; and yet they never have a chance to cele- 
brate a considerable victory, because despite their most honest 
efforts they vary from the true path of labor, they push unwittingly 
into by-ways, they waste their toil ; so that their strength of applica- 
tion is but vanity and their end disappointment. These persons must 
judiciously confine their aspirations to smaller services, or they will 
only have constant cause to mourn fruitless periods of well-meant 
and exhausting struggle. 

There is an instinct in zest, in relish, which lightens or obliter- 
ates the sense of toil : denoting adequate capacity for given duties 
and predicting success in them. In itself, by itself, drudgery never 
began, conducted and completed a great undertaking, or wrought 
out a creditable biography. There are simple and most familiar 
acknowledgments of this truth in political matters, in every-day life. 
And we are prepared to say in all candor, and with your known 
approval, that conjoined with an iron will for duty there was in 



4^ 

Increase Sumner a love for liis calling that made his study his de- 
light, and prophesied his days of happy diligence, abounding with 
professional victories. 

In his constitution and character there was among other funda- 
mental elements the sense and faculty of Humor ; humor in ap- 
preciation and expression. As an appropriate part of the man, and 
as a great possession with him personally, this element was funda- 
mental. A man without humor may grow rich on his shrewdly 
obtained compound interest ; he may give what are termed sub- 
stantial evidences of his " thrifty manhood ; " but he is only just 
within the pale of humanity, genuine humanity, — that is all. 

I have almost forgotten how Seekonk and Alford and Muddy 
Brook appeared when I last rode through their gates, and I shall 
probably never see them again ; but now and at any time hereafter 
you and I can people tliose and many adjacent places with the old 
inhabitants of twenty and thirty years ago, because we both saw 
them painted in words of comedy, in an address to the justice here 
or the jury at the shire town, by Increase Sumner, Attorney and 
Counsellor at Law. We may see these men a^ain and ag-ain, 
and try to l)elieve that they have grown to be different, because 
older men ; but there the original painting remains. By a sen- 
tence or clause uttered in perfect mimicrj^, or by one singular, all- 
comprehensive, metaphoric word, enhanced it may be with a ges- 
ture, portraits were given by this consummate artist,— frescoed on 
the gallery walls of every listener's memory, — there to abide for- 
ever. 

The GOOD TASTE that was a leading feature in his unnumbered 
arguments, his scores of lectures and his conversation was in great 
part the result of a special, assiduous cultivation. An innate thirst 
for the higher literature and its gratification,— it may be insensibl}^, 
but as the result of his reading — produced a marked and happy 
effect upon the style of his discourses, and made his speech a con- 
stantly improving exhibition of the neatest, most precise, most en- 
tertaining forms of rlietoric. Much has been said of late vears bv 



J 3 

leading professors in Liw-scliools, and prominent practitionei's at tlie 
bar, about the alleged inevitable injnries to the powers for legal 
debate consequent upon general "'indulgence" in the libraries of 
belles-lettres. The character and life on which we meditate contra- 
dict this warning, — which I presume some good old dry-as-dust 
originated for Authority, and many young law tutors have repeated 
out of pure respect to precedent. Here was a young man whose 
natural inclination to the studies deprecated was promoted by the 
desire to supply what he presumed, (and rightly,) were marked de- 
ficiencies in his regular discipline for his calling ; and whose ad- 
dresses before judges and jurors, as well as promiscuous audiences, 
give abounding evidences of the great value to him of his late but 
extensive roamings in the fields of exalted, miscellaneous literature. 
A brief, extemporaneous obituary address delivered by him some 
ten years ago w^as recently shown to one of the most distinguished 
journalists in the country, with the request that he should give his 
opinion, from the rhetoric, as to its probable author. And without 
hesitation, after the reading, the competent critic whose judgment was 
invoked, declared that although there were peculiarities about the 
address which induced him to l»elieve that it was by an author with 
whom he was not acquainted, still he could imagine that the '^ ele- 
gant text" was the conjposition of Edward Everett. 

Enthusiasm was a prime, distinguishing element in the cliarac- 
tei of the man. Its importance in his profession is perhaps no 
greater than in many others that may be named, but in no other is it 
more decisive in what are known as exigencies of practice. Even 
a physician needs enthusiasm ; and the preacher requires it abso- 
lutely, if he is to convert many. But without it, the lawyer is nev- 
er a thoroughly successful advocate before a jury. Indeed, every 
true man is an enthusiast ; — and the woman without enthusiasm 
does not rightfully belong to her sex. A man may be industrious, 
methodical, with a basis of good judgment, with a fountain of caus- 
tic wit, with a gift of language, schooled and learned 5 but if he 
does not possess the rich quality of enthusiasm, he is lamentably 



44 

deficient. A man wit^iout enthusiasm may excite admiration for 
himself but not for his cause ; he may himself commiserate, but lie 
cannot beg'et in others emotions of personal sympatic. His state- 
ment of facts may be marvellously clear and skillful, and his logical 
deductions may be as sharp and exact as the circumstances of the 
case will allow ; and he may riddle the opposing evidence with 
spears of quick analysis, contrast, and personal invective. The 
jmy may pity the unfortunate client or witness against whom he turns 
the cold and bitter stream of satire with merciless art. Here comes 
the less able but enthusiastic advocate, who takes inspiration from 
the fears and sufferings and desperate situation of his poor client, 
whom he believes to be the party wronged or unjustly accused 5 
and he puts his nervous fellowship into that jury, he inocculates 
them with his hot heart's blood ; and presently there are twelve 
men before him, ready and anxious to declare for the rescue of the 
person whose miseries are portrayed, and if possil»le to outrun their 
mesmerizing captain in the service id executing sudden justice upon 
the complainant who is now arraigned before the bar of justice ! 
The complaisant attorney is heard and seen with interest and even 
with awe, as he deals out his pungent blows against the partie;-'. 
whom he would punish by the verdict. The enthusiastic advocate 
is not a third person at all, but transmits all his opinions, convic- 
tions, hopes and resolves into the gaping triers before him ; until 
twelve men are tormented before the appointed time in which to 
announce the decision of acquittal. — Join to industry and sound 
discretion, and humor, and a correct sense of the proprieties, the 
glow of enthusiasm in the lawyer and advocate ; and while he will 
gain many suits that are of doubtful value, before an incorrupt tri- 
bunal, — in a perfectly good cause, he is glorious and irresistible ! 
Such a lawyer and advocate was Increase Sumner. 

You will pardon me for saying in this connection that the enthu- 
siastic man is always a prominent target for the envious, or the hon- 
estly-made assaults of the phlegmatic nature. " ! He is too fast !" 
'' He is inconsiderate ! " " He is devoid of philosophy ! " " He 



45 

lias no balance ! " '^ He is a fool /" Worse yet : *' He lias no 
manners ! " The non-enthusiast has a mountain from whence to 
criticise. See him ! He never sings ; lie drawls : he never preach- 
es; he prates: he never laughs; lie grins : he never cries out; he 
sniffles : he never storms ; h(; sulks : he may never positively offend 
anybody ; he does disgust a few : if he rarely does anything that 
comes palpably under the category of grievous wrong, he does not 
f)ften accomplish much of substantial good : and if he does rob 
widows and orphans you cannot detect him at the trade. Enthusi- 
asm is Energy, Motion, Progress, Attainment ; — it is Life ; — it is 
Humanity ! 

The enthusiastic lawyer, whose thoughts are concentrated upon a 
case in which his feelings have become deeply interested, is rapidly 
walking from his house or his office to the court room where the issue 
is about to be tried. A good man in the Parish, one of the lead- 
ing church officers, crosses up to his path directly, stops when in 
front of him and dogmatically exclaims : '^ It is pleasant weather !'' 
The sun has already been shining six hours of the day, and there 
is not a babe in any household round-about that does not know that 
the weather is pleasant. The interruptedly-halted man — (not merely 
saluted) — replies in the affirmative, in a brusque and indignant 
tone, and sweeps past and on. The pious neighbor immediately 
relates the stoiy of the very brief wayside interview^, and then car- 
ries about a hand-basket of charity with which to sprinkle and 
cover the recollection of the surly sin. And eulogies will be writ- 
ten in which this offence on the edge of the highway shall be sadly 
and forgivingly commented upon by the speakers. A little com- 
mon sense would explain what charity is unnecessarily summoned 
to excuse ; and a little more common sense in an earlier day would 
have prevented the provocation which was rightly resented and 
rebuked. 

There is a compensation for labor in the satisfaction of refresh- 
ment and rest that follows. The most enjoyable companionship is 
that of the man industrious in some legitimate calling, whom you 



46 

meet in an appointed or accidental interval of leisure. Then tlie 
social qualities, if tliey exist, are manifested with singular felicity. 
So it was with our father and friend. I need not recall many per- 
sonal scenes ; I can make a personal appeal. You remember how 
it was on such a day or such an evening, when by some unforseen 
circumstances you were thrown into his society, and made mutually 
dependent for temporary entertaining. Perhaps it was a new rev- 
elation to you of the man, although ycju had known him, as you 
believed, for many years before. How surprised you were to learn of 
his acquaintance with your ancestry : and of your later relations, such 
a treasury-house of anecdote ! And then, of your own life you 
had lost, until he i-evived it, the happy recollection of a scene in 
which you figured conspicuously, and concerning which in some 
})rofessional manner your companion had ascertained and once em- 
ployed the facts. What a Town Chronicler ! Absolutely free 
from the spirit of mere gossip, having no sort of delight in the sto- 
ries which malice concocts or exaggerates and spreads, but with an 
unmitigated scorn and disgust for everything of that kind, he 
caught all the important items in the current news ; and they were 
graven on his wonderful memory of steel. And in relating the 
anecdotes that possessed the shades or ])ith of humor you would 
see that he was saturated with the fun, and to his lingers' ends 
tickled in every nerve of his nature. 0, how he would tell the 
story of some neighborhood disagreement : ending in an equity 
suit and rounding off with a trial and admonition in the church ! 

You might be informed for the first time in your life that your 
cousin George, on your father's side, married a Doratha Brown, 
whose mother was Elizabeth Henry, — and she was born on the old 
Kilburn farm. " Her brother, your cousin's wife's mother's broth- 
er, Ebenezer Henry, was a queer old fellow. He claimed a right 
of way for an irrigating and mill-race ditch across the upper edge 
of Hiram Pixley's farm, — having purchased from Pixley, and own- 
ing on both sides of the original farm. He undertook to commence 
digging the ditch. Pixley warned him off. Old man Henry sued 



47 

on liis covenant for discretionary right-of-way. I brouglit suit for 
him. He got his authority: went on with his ditch. I told him 
to go and get Woodworth to make the survey ; but he wouldn't, — 
he staked out and dug his own ditch. When he got through he 
found that the lower end of his ditch was higher than the upper 5 
and the water took a notion that it wouhln't run up-hill. Every- 
body round was laughing at the old man. To make it w^orse Pix- 
ley had some fine flowing springs in the northeast corner of his 
land, and he run a furrow down from them, a distance of about ten 
rods, and brought the water into this ditch, and used it himself ! 
Old man Henry couldn't stand that. So he undertook to fill up 
the ditch. Pixley warned him off from his premises. But the old 
man persisted. Then Pixley sued Henry for trespass. I brought 
the suit. Beat him. Got an injunction and damages. The Court 
held, as we claimed : that while Henry had a right to dig a ditch 
across the premises he had no right to fill one up ! And he could 
not dig a new ditch for the time of his covenant for that purpose 
had lapsed. I guess the ditch is there to this day. It is a good 
ditch ; if you only turn the water in at the right end. Yes, yes : 
old man Henry was a brother of yoiu- cousin George's wife's 
mother." 

We shall proceed to higher qualities and considerations. Im- 
agination and the Sense of the Sublime, were constantly manifested 
by the man ; in his patronage, his study, his instructidus, his rea- 
sonings. Among the earliest purchases, for his private miscellane- 
ous library, were treatises upon the fine arts, and copies of the 
standard poets as they were then catalogued — the volumes 
now well-worn — all dated within the first years of his married life. 
And while he avoided, as he would any species of affectation and 
pedantry, that cheap habit — possessed and practiced so widely at 
the present day— of quoting a familiar paragraph from Shakspeare or 
Milton, whenever possible to assert or assume an application, he could 
and did in an unexpected, and therefore original mode, not unfre- 
quently drive home the conviction of the truth of an argument or 



48 

theory with a most apt and charming verse or sentence from one 
of the masters in English classical literature. And woe unto the 
fluent adversary, who thinking he had all the knowledge and virtue 
of the text on his side, extracted an illustration from a chapter, or 
act, or epic, which, in itself or with the aid of adjacent or by the 
light of independent, neighboring phrases, of the same author, ad- 
mitted of a shifting or reversing of the force that was thus brought 
to bear. The danger and disaster incident to such a careless deal- 
ing with the dramas of Shakespeare, or the books of Milton, or the 
stanzas of Br3^ant, was demonstrated on many a " well-fought field " 
at the Berkshire bar j and youthful lawyers became prudentially 
advised of the necessity for weighing and meditating on the whole 
of the play of King Lear, before they mouthed any of the craz}^ 
monarch's philosophy in their speech to the jury as counsel oppos- 
ing the veteran graduate of the Bethlehem log school-house. For if 
the reading be faulty, the connection mistaken, the point subordi- 
nate to some large sentiment, which in its breadth of gravity 
weighed the rather to the other side, the response would come ; and it 
were better that that quotation had not been born. 

An extensive reading in general literature, and a right compre- 
hension at all times of the real gist and conclusion of the author, 
was an important part of this man's character and available store. 

In light literature, his range of acquaintance was wide and cotem- 
poraneous. Pardon this personal statement : I never saw my father 
reading a novel. And yet I never heard the contents, the charac- 
ters, of a work of fiction which had obtained creditable popularity, 
discussed in his presence, without receiving his judgment of the 
book, unquestionably founded upon a thorough understanding of 
its plot and dialogue. Walter Scott was a familiar favorite with 
him • and I remember to have heard him say that the world seemed 
to have darkened when he learned of the death of the wonderful 
" Wizard of the North." 

In treating of the common law doctrines applicable to an impor- 
tant case, he once quoted from the prefatory portion of a novel by 



49 

G. P. R. James ; and the eminent Judge who decided the case in 
his favor, repeated the " authority." 

His love for painting and sculpture, — respecting which his untu- 
tored judgment w^as acknowledged to be excellent, — is perhaps as 
notorious as any characteristic of the man. And by essays and 
every practical expedient within his privilege, he sought to create 
and extend a similar love and appreciation, while as well by this 
as other modes constantly deepening his own. " In painting and 
in music," — I have heard him say, — "God has certainly given us rich 
hints of some of the finest glories of the celestial world. By their 
aid I sometimes feel almost inclined to say that I could place a sat- 
isfactory existence for eternity." 

And having regard to all that I have recently said, a passing 
direct mention, at least, must be made of the marvelous endowment 
of Memory. How often have you heard the Judge upon the bench 
turn from counsel disputing as to the respective accuracy of their 
notes of testimony, and ask Increase Sumner, if he chanced to be 
sitting by, what was his recollection of the language of the witness. 
And you remember with what entire reliance the answer was received 
both by the Court and the contending attorneys. And such was 
his recollection of precedent, and the consequent frequency of con- 
venient reference to him by Judges sitting on the Supreme Bench, 
that Henry W. Bishop once remarked, that " Sumner had been 
earning a Judge's half-pay during the last quarter of a century." 
Of faces, localities, pictures and vocal harmonies his mental im- 
pressions were clear for a description in detail, even when the op- 
portunity for seeing and hearing had been incidental and imperfect. 

Need I say specially, in such an audience, that our father was a 
keen appreciator of the noblest rhetoric, both of prose and poetry. 
His elocution declared this to be a fact of his genius, with unim- 
peachable emphasis. You remember his readings of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and the occasional odes that were prepared 
for our local celebrations, and his fervid and impressive oratory, 
when the announced speaker on any public occasion. The combi- 



50 

nation of humor and enthusiasm and sublimity rendered him remark- 
ably sensitive to the sweet strains of poesy, and fully alive to the 
power and perfections of eloquence. If you have heard him read 
Walter Scott's '' Song of Rebecca"' : — 

''When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 

Out from the land of bondage came. 
Her father's God before her moved, 

An awfnl cloud of smoke and flame. 
By day, along the astonished lands 

The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimson sands 

Returned the fiery column's glow ;" — 

Oi' if you have heard him read Burns' " Cotters' Saturday 
Night;" or Bryant's " Old Man's Funeral ;" or Longfellow's '^ Vil- 
lao-e Blacksmith," then you have a red-letter hour from that enter- 
tainment which you will never forget. 

But above all and beyond all, he was one of the few who are 
gifted for the reading of Holy Writ ; one of those designed to 
reveal Scripture by Scripture—the only commentary that is plain 
and decided and beautiful : the commentary that alone will be when 
there are no sects on earth, and all shall see eye to eye, — in the mil- 
lenium. 0, delicious echoes of the far-off days ! Wearied of the 
preaching and the praying, and even the singing in the church ; 
more weary of the Sunday-school instruction, and most weary of 
the enforced perusal of the Sunday-school books, in which hideous 
wood-cuts represented the pitiless Oalvinistic wrath of God to man ; 
even when we least comprehended the significance of the verse, how 
rejoiced we were as he took up the old family Bible and commenced 
to intone the sacred text. Then we heard not the reading of the 
Scribes and Pharisees, but the voice of one having authority. 
Then we knew that the beatitudes were not platitudes. Then we 
heard Paul thundering on Mars hill. Then the most neglected vision 
of the seer of the isle of Patmos, in all its grandeur and glory, was 
spread out before us. He was an unsurpassed chanter of the songs 
of the sweet singer of Israel ; and an interpreter of the Book of Job, 
by nature. 



51 

The Rev. Mr. Dale, an eloquent Methodist clerg-yman, who in 
the year 1866 preached at Virginia City, Nevada — and who at the 
time referred to was an entire stranger to nie — on one winter's Sunday 
morning, in the year named, in the course of a sermon devoted to 
urging the laj^men of the congregation to aid in the proselyting 
service of the parish, took occasion to state that he dated his con- 
version, so near as he was able to establish such a point in his life, 
at an hour when he heard — as by accident — a printed discourse by 
Dr. Melville of England, read in a remarkably clear and attractive 
manner by a lawyer, in an old stone, Episcopal church, in the vil- 
lage of Great-Barrington, Massachusetts. 

Do we not now naturalh^ arrive at the grand, culminating, crown- 
ing characteristic of the man ? 

0, brother ! as we sat together in silence by the shores of yonder 
sounding sea, in that far-oft* border land of our Continent, smitten with 
the tidings of his death, liow inexpressibly consoling, how changed 
the sorro^y to mournful but undoubted, animating joy, as we read 
that one little sentence in the midst of the first testimonial of 
respect — seemingly considered so unnecessary in the community 
where he dwelt that it had almost not been said — extemporised by 
brethren of the bar in the Court over which he but recently pre- 
sided : " His integrity was never questioned ! " ^' His integrity was 
never questioned !" Not : " was always vindicated," or " ever 
maintained." " Never questioned ! " In a profession, up the gra- 
dations of which he struggled from the lowest r(jund in the ladder; 
where there is confessedlv such a multitude of temptations to com- 
mit for temporary advantage's sake, and with slight chance of ex- 
posure, the smaller sins of a sliarp practice — giving rise at least to 
a shade of distrust, and warrant by the whispered taunt of the foe, — 
in a profession where he necessarily provoked hundreds of not over- 
scnipulous persons into keen and lasting enmity — forty-five years 
in that profession ; — and he never boasting, and no man in his life- 
time extolling his integrity : because it never occurred to any ac- 
quaintance to dream of suspecting the honesty of Increase Sumner. 



^2 

And wlioever doubted liis sincerity of judgment f Put two ways 
before him, of right and of wrong, and who of his acquaintance 
does not know which one he would instantly, and as it were invol- 
untarily, adopt and pursue ? 

My friends : I do not despise, I respect his religious connections. 
But I care little about the accidental machinery of his ecclesiastical 
experience. We have an Example. I have come up out of the 
deeps of that bereavement — from the anguish of the blow, from 
kneeling beside that old man's grave, where he sleeps, where there 
is no knowledge, or device, or labor, and into which I had always 
thought I should precede him, — I have come assured anew that the 
good shall be immortal, and the good alone. Tell me no more 
that the Universe, or any portion of it, has been or ever will be dis- 
tricted off for the perpetual jurisdiction of police courts, or the ever- 
lasting maintenance of county jails. I have seen a life which in 
respect to one point of heavenly fellowship, is by the plummet per- 
fect : — as the commandment presumed it was possible to be. Faults 
there may have been abundant. But it requires a creed against the 
Scriptures to deny the sufficiency of an atonement plead to cover 
the frailty which belonged to such a man. Seek no more to file off 
the asperities of my individual humanity, with the raised letters of 
cast-iron articles of belief — newest brought from tlie pattern found- 
ries of theology. He that doeth right, and resteth upon Him that 
was altogether the perfect man, shall live. And the abominations 
shall be cut off. And the intention is the exclusive centre of in- 
quiry and judgment. I know I speak from the readings and con- 
versations of the man who appointed these ceremonies. He recog- 
nized infirmities ; he repented of errors ; he rested in righteous faith 
and work. Hypocrisy everywhere and anywhere was the test and 
termination of his most active abhorrence. Shrive no souls for him 
either with the fragrance of the incense flung from within the chan- 
cel from golden censors, and rolled up against the face of the mag- 
nificent marble altar of the cathedral. Shrive no souls for him 
with the pungent aroma of the caraway-seed, that floods and per- 



53 

meates every country iiieetiiig-liouse in New England. No raiment 
or aroma, of human patching, would be accepted by him as the 
clothing of Christianity. A text of Scripture torn from its setting 
and poked into the crevice of a boulder, did not sanctify the rock 
for him as the corner-stone of the true church. Such men do not 
become near-sighted and cross-eyed from daily readings and re- 
readings of decalogue, and canons, and " land marks," for they 
behold, riding on the arch of the rainbow, the promised metropolis 
from Heaven, as on the morning of summer storms the sun bursts 
through the heavy clouds ; — and they could not do the forbidden 
deeds. The tomes of learning and philosoph}^, so called, which 
pertain to discursive, speculative opinions of mankind about the 
details of the hereafter, would not be trodden under foot by him ; 
but he would walk around them until he could meet, and solicit the 
grasp of the hand of the brother alone capable of helping him, because 
the saluted friend put as good fruit in the bottom of the basket as 
was displayed in the upper rows. And is such a man to lose his 
place in the kingdom, because when wearied with over-work he 
was irritable and petulant 1 Those who participate in rearing such 
barriers, who make such tests with accompanying, congenial excus- 
es, who devise theologies that would prevent the heavenly ingress 
of such a man as we have contemplated to-night, may be accepted 
as worthy to form theories for the groove-educated and unthinking 
masses j but they could not be made of any use in a pin-factory, 

! I have seen a life that shall be restored at the resurrection 
morn ! For truth and Christian confidence were his. Take out, 
if you will, of the common heritage of this people, his long, brilliant 
record in the intellectual tournaments at the Berkshire bar : but, 
O, father ! for the constant mirror of thy stainless honor, and the 
inspiration of thy righteous, undaunted will : that at the great day 
of gathering, and in the Beautiful City, we may all be there ! 

My friends : we have only taken a glimpse at this character. 
And has any word been spoken not borne out, as was indicated, by 
the attending, upspringing testimony of the listeners who knew the 



54 

man ? If these Points of Personal record, which at first seemed to 
be something considerable and egotistic, diminish continually before 
your reviving memories— if these hints, fortunately, refresh and con- 
nect your personal recollections — then there is the license and war- 
rant to inquire : What was the life-work t>f the citizen who planned 
these foundations'? 

It is difficult to arrive at, or even approach a full estimate of the 
accomplished mission of such a laborer. If the stranger concedes 
the truth of the sketch that has been made with faltering hand, he 
must behold from the mere naming of the attributes, a neighbor 
and servant in this community, whose influence for good could not 
have been other than intense and })owerful. Forty-five years' de- 
votion to his profession in Great-Barrington ! Let those whose 
memories go back one-third of that period of time, and from that 
measurement up to its full compass, recall and reflect upon that 
panorama of the past. Take out of the unrolled canvas the form 
and figure of that man. From public convocations, from the dem- 
onstrated wisdom of public counsels, from the decision of public 
issues, take out what you know belonged to his presence and his 
efforts, and then seek to realize the loss that has been sustained ac- 
cording to your remembrance. If you lay hold of the wires 
attached to an active galvanic battery, you will feel the shock 
despite any former disbelief in its electric force ] if you come within 
the pulse-circle of a community whose life is largely affected by a 
single earnest purpose, you will have to confess the source that 
imparts the most strength to the throbbings. 

But it may be that so near the power and so familiar with its 
contributions, you do not comprehend its magnitude, its vehemence 
and accomplishment. So useful, so necessary, it is difficult to ac- 
cept the fact of his death. Perhaps it is a little matter that first 
breaks in upon you the true conception of the vacancy. It maybe 
a suit at law, — very likely : it may be a town meeting. It may be 
interested regret : something you yourself wanted done, of that de- 
scription which you were wont to lay before him for performance. 



55 

It may be, for an 3^ one of you, that there is something taking place, 
or about to take place, advertised, in which you would naturally 
place him as the prominent actor. He is gone ! In some such 
way, the departure of a gi'eat man is first truly recognized in the 
minds of friends and acquaintances who are not of the family 
household. There is not the affliction that kinship begets ; but 
the impression made in the brain and heart by the action of the 
man, in the many days that are passed, leaves a seal that is not 
sensibly effaced, until the blow of some exigency startles one with 
the sense of actual and irretrievable bereavement. But from the 
moment there is an awakened realization of the loss, the knowledge 
of the greatness of the void will grow until the reckoning and the 
eulogy are complete : — each friend and neighbor for himself. And 
the estimate will not then be obscured or belittled by the fact that 
the person mourned did not attain — because he did not seek — po- 
litical prominence or notoriety. 

You cannot compute the life-work by statistics. If you should 
figure up everj^ act in every Court and every manuscript in every 
suit, and boast of a given, specific number of cases, and in a large 
proportion of whicli there were forensic triumphs, you would feel 
conscious, after all, of a baiTen calendar. Such tables would give 
but a skeleton sketch of the professional labor of the lawyer. An 
entire, distinct and graphic report of a single important trial in 
which he fought and won, were worth more as a type-history than 
the mere diary of his practice — though that would recite enormous 
annals of industry. And yet it ma}^ be stated, properly enough, 
that the record shows that Increase Sumner performed a greater 
amount of office labor than any other brother advocate in the same 
County, during his term of years. 

We are proud in being able to point to tributes which his con- 
scientious and scrupulous professional brethren have paid to his 
public character and conduct. Coming from the leading men of 
the Berkshire bar, and endorsed by the entire profession in the 
County, they engrave an eulogy of the highest standard, and give 



56 

a biographical epitome which will never be challenged. A similar 
complimentary sketch coming from other circles of the profession, 
in other States of the Republic, might be received with suspicion, 
and by a stranger would at best be regarded with indifference. But 
the saying and the seal of the Berkshire bar, in acknowledgment 
of the genius and leadership in Increase Sumner, is a genuine 
proclamation of excellence. 

I would only desire in this connection to introduce the testimony 
volunteered by a former student in the office of our father — now 
one of the most distinguished judges, on the Pacific coast. I refer 
to Judge A. 0. Niles, of Nevada City, California. Under date of the 
23d of last February, he wrote : " Your father did me great service 
in judiciously directing my legal studies in the right path. He did me 
a favor once which was in a special sense personal ; but I do not 
owe him as much for that as for the privilege of studying with one 
of those men who make our profession honorable. I looked upon 
your father then, as I do now, as my ideal of a lawyer — I mean a 
la^vyer in the highest sense of that much abused word." 

Blessed with a hearty, robust physical constitution — the joint 
result of inheritance and healthful exercise in his youth — he could 
answer a share of application which would have broken the majority 
of men at half his professional years. He pursued his labors during 
his half century with almost unimpaired vigor. His chosen field 
was limited. Such a man does not occur many times in a full 
century 5 and in such narrow boundaries, few of his stamp and ca- 
pabilities are confined. Not that the scope was too narrow for hon- 
orable endeavor ; but, evidently, undoubtedly, it might have been 
broader, with corresponding gain. Loving the village where he 
wooed and won the mother of his children, bound to the place 
where his dear ones lay sleeping, he preserved, he maintained his 
good word and work here ; combining the favor of all those around 
about who could employ him to vindicate their cause in the Courts of 
justice ; reaping a generous prosperity from the toil ; and then dedi- 
cating a portion of his well-earned, and frugally but not stintingly 



-57 

saved revenues^ to the construction of the edifice in whicli yon are 
seated to-night. 

His interest and influence in all public local affairs were declared 
and hearty. For years and years, when it was known that the po- 
sitions were an extraordinary tax upon his time and energy, he 
served in places of trust and })ower, in hehalf of his immediate 
neighbors. And whenever at home (»r abroad, in the County, or at 
the seat of power in the Commonwealth, special objects of desire 
were entertained cm the part of our citizens, he was put forward to 
champion or solicit. Nor on such occasions were his efforts ever 
lacking or unsuccessful. And you rememl)er what an earnest advo- 
cate he was of every proper local improvement 5 how zealous for 
the construction and maintenance of good loads, highways for the 
people between adjacent neighborhoods, — this anxiety and corres- 
ponding exertion being of veiy considerable value to the people 
before the days of the iron-horse. And lor schools, and acade 
mies, and cemeteries, and agricultural societies, and fire companies, 
and town clocks, and every convenience and access(ny and adorn- 
ment of civilized counnunity life, he was ready in suggestion, in 
counsel, and in ever generous pecuniary support. 

His record in the Legislature and in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and in the office of State Attorney, and lastly iu the chair of 
the Judge, exhibited his fitness for promotion to the highest post of 
civil distinction, — to seats of honor to which he might undoubtedly 
have attained had he not, of his own choice, almost exclusively 
restricted his ambition within the bounds of his professional calling. 

That there is a remarkable Providence exhibited in his final per- 
sonal work, for the general good, there can be no question. With 
a reasonable prospect of ten or fifteen years more of life before he 
should be called to take his place in the silent (chamber, towards 
which we are all hastening, he rose from his bed one December 
morning, in 1870, and suddenly exclaimed : " Oh, why am I strick- 
en with such cold and pain ! " He staggered back to that couch 

from which he was never more to move without the aid of friendly 

8 



58 

handsj and on wliicli he was soon to breathe his last. He hoped 
and expected to have himself stood here to-night and given per- 
sonal welcome, in the edifice begun in an old but far from decrepid 
age, with the plan of a memento for his favorite child. Yet the 
work was so far advanced that he had no solicitude about its com- 
pletion. ^' It is all arranged : it is to be a memorial hallj it is to 
be called the Julia Sumner Hall.'' It would in any event have 
been a memorial for himself 5 but now it is to be so regarded in a 
singularly solemn manner. Tlie appropriateness, the catholicity of 
the plan is worthy of your attention and recollection. Not a chap- 
el with its restrictions for service, not a costly window of stained 
glass in the walls of the handsome church, but a Free Hall for tho 
people, situated in the most eligible block in the town : commo- 
dious, well-lighted, well-ventilated, in every respect thoroughly 
adapted for all the purposes which its secular, liberty-cheering name 
suggests, — A Pub''ic Hall. And it is to ])e called by her name : 
" Julia Sumner.'' 

Was she worthy of this lionor ? Was it the foolish fondness of 
the father, whose ju'ide and partiality in her were not, and ought not 
to have l)een shared outsid(? of the family, that is signified in the 
christening of this public chamber? Wlio was Julia Sumner? 
Are vou called upon, simply out of respect to the memory of the 
builder, to name this place as he told his (ddest son he desired it 
should be l)aptized ! Or, are we to follow the only will of the de- 
ceased fatiier in this respect with indifference, because there is 
nothing, in or out of the commonly accepted proprieties which 
should make us attach a larger importance to it ! It becomes a 
question. For we all know and say that in every cemetery there 
are shafts of marble and granite, that have cost more money than 
those who slumber beneath them ever gave either in charity or 
risked in enterprise, or could be represented as worthy of from any 
moral advantage to the world. Then, who was Julia Sumner? Of 
com'se, many persons who knew the father well did not know the 
child. And a very l)rief reference to her biography will be permit- 



59 

ted, as due to the occasion, and valuable in tlie private lecovd that 
is to be published. 

Julia Elizabeth Sumner, the sixth child of Increase and Pluma A. 
Sumner, was bom on the 20th of October, 1S39. She had no sis- 
ter companions, and her own mother died in the year 1847. Her 
ample educational facilities were improved with a zeal that elicited 
the cordial approbation of teachers, and school-girls whom she 
aided ; the testimonials from the latter to her family being- among 
the singular and most affecting portions of the record volunteered 
on her behalf after she had fallen aslec]). 

But it was not her scholarship that attracted the larger attention 
for her, or distinguished her with any great degree of prominence 
above her youthful associates and friends. She was tlie full heir 
to the intellectual vigor of the IVither, with all the (iueenly grace 
and bewitching loquacity of the mother. I am aware that the lis- 
tener who had no acquaintance to which I make reference in this 
description, will smile at this appai'ent fulsomeness of eulogy j but 
I know I speak to those and to many who could add stronger par- 
agraphs than I shall dare to pronounce, in honest recognition of the 
accomplishments, and merits, and fascinations of this daughter, and 
then express regret at the insufficiency of their tribute to the mem- 
ory of Julia Sumner. It was the fact that her's were the glorious 
gifts of genius, which in woman defy analysis in their finest touch- 
es 5 charming where she would, and dismissing unpleasant subjects 
and persons with a royal notice, — in the last decided to the verge 
of severity, yet after all leaving the impression of a gentle good- 
nio-ht. 

o 

Commencing towards the end of her seminary days to taste the 
pleasure of the higher magazine literatin-e, she rapidly became 
enamored with the productions of the best writers our country has 
produced ; and her original criticisms upon the latest review, arti- 
cle or poem by (jne of the standards, was well ^vorth the trouble 
and labor of a regular weekly correspondence. And this from a 
a girl who had not yet reached the twentieth year of her age. 



60 

But she never appreciated lierself, nor, with a tew exceptions, 
was she in any sense widely appreciated, as a person of remarka- 
l)le mental powers and womanly blandishments, until there was 
what may be termed an accidental discovery. For some literary 
pm'pose, in addition to those immediately involved, in 1860 a dra- 
matic entertainment was projected and rehearsed in this village : 
Bnlwer's popular play of the Lady of Lyons being the selected 
piece, and Julia Sumner being cast in the part of the haughty Pau- 
line. The scope which the character affords for the exhibition of 
dramatic faculties, is familiar to the majority of those present ; and 
the fact that Julia displayed on the occasion referred to, powers of 
pathos and general emotional declamation, worthy of the best act- 
resses upon the Metropolitan boards, is well attested l)y scores of 
thoroughly qualified judges. However our thoughts may run on 
the general propriety and character of the theatrical profession, it is 
a prerogative to say that there was then manifested an ability to 
take a front rank in a calling which demands the very highest class 
of talent, in order to obtain any respectable measure of success. 
Althoufifh this was the first and last indication and demonstration 
of the kind, it was ample for the establishment of a new reputation 
for our sister ; one which made her sought after by many who had 
been slight acquaintances, who subsequently learned to love her for 
a th'ousand personal attractions of manner and of speech. The ele- 
ment of confidence in herself was roused to new and more appro- 
priate activity, by this success on the little local stage ; and her 
development in mind was very rapid from that hour. 

Her accomplishments, her conversational grace and her literary 
productions had perhaps nothing of a characteristic precocity about 
them ; but they were extraordinary as the performance of such ma- 
turity as her years fairly indicated. There were a strength and depth 
of mind which imposed respect, rather than dazzled the stranger or 
the friend. There was evidence of a thorough and large growth : 
and promise of glorious things for the future. Had Julia Sumner 
lived for a score of years beyond her allotted time, she would have 



61 

made a name that would have been cherished, not only by herimme 
diate friends, but would have been inscribed in the national literary 
biographical annals, and the catalogue of those eminent in works 
of benevolence and charity. We were just beginning to under- 
stand what a genius was unfolding in Julia, and to plan for her the 
widest opportunities, when the force of a long smothered malady 
focalized, and brought her to the tomb. She herself had her " Mis- 
sion" selected, and for it she was willing and determined to make 
full preparation before she attempted any services in her chosen 
field. Meanwhile the principles, the underlying maxim and rules 
of the medical profession and the school she proposed to enter, were 
heartil}^ accepted and endorsed by her, and she was ready and zeal- 
ous with her reasons for the faith that was in her. Her nature it 
was to pour all her thoughts and energies where her faith directed. 
She burned to be about her special business, in the " Mission," 
which she believed had been appointed for her by the Master. Her 
earnestness knew none of the chilling limitations which cramp the 
lialf-hearted, though it may be, excellent people who are less acutely 
organized. Tf not everything in hei' work, then nothing. And you 
take such a nature, with iis massive brain, with that clear, all-com- 
prehending vision, that most expressive face, that pauseless womanly 
anxiety for amiable discussion, and devotion unwearied in the cause 
she espoused, and set it in any community, and it must swing" out 
its influence to the world, and bring to bear a power whose results 
time could not efface. 

Companion girls, now in matronly life ; some of you know what 
magnetism and what strength there w^ere in Julia Sumner. In any 
civilized and refined circle, it were better to have her for a friend 
than an army with banners. I do not fear a failure in the appeal to 
personal recollection on her behalf, and in more than justification of 
this christening ceremonial. There is not a lady here, who has fre- 
quently come within the radius of Julia's intimacy, I repeat, who 
could not furnish tokens of a time when she intuitive!}^ reached and 
revealed their opinions and ideas, and lent some aid and solution to 



62 

difficulties which were admitted -, sometimes lighting- up the whole 
horizon with the word of explanation or advice. She was ever 
ready to give out of her store of information and vigorous sympa- 
thy. There was not enough selfishness in her nature for use in the 
domain of physical self-protection. She may he said to have loved 
to learn of individual trials that were within her scope of relief. 
Since suffering with offen(;es must come, it was a real pleasure to 
her to act the physician : witnessing the pain or perplexity with the 
average of experienced sorrow, but beholding the recovery or the re- 
coloring, or the illuminating, with rajjturous emotions and congrat- 
ulations of joy. Thus did she show in advance, rather in a spirit- 
ual way, that she was eminently fitted for the " Mission'^ she had 
vowed to undertake. 

Her's should be described rather as a generous than as a merely 
atfectionate nature. Her esteem was fixed upon the abstract and 
impressional things of life and literature ; her love and anxiety were 
concerning those matters with which she could so relate herself that 
she might go about doing good. And there was nothing mawkish 
in her temperament. And this was because of her inborn passion 
and delight to renew, reinstate, promote, perfect that which was 
lacking. She exhihited this in her modes and manner of instruc- 
tion — engaged as she was in the work of teaching for many years. 
And the marked success of her labor as an instructress, was un- 
doubtedly due in great part to these natural qualifications. So it 
was in her own self-examination and self-training work 5 so obvi- 
ously to all in her outward service. 

You put that which we term masculine acuteness into the mental 
and moral organization of some women, and because of the narowness 
of their heads, you have to take out some of the essential womanly. 
iVnd then you have a crank, smart woman 5 and in order that there 
may be daily supplication for deliverance from such, let the litany 
be amended. Ah, but when there is great breadth of crown, and 
the shrewdness is superadded to the gentleness : blessed are they 
who live in the society or dwell in the sunshine of such. 



63 

The smart giii of the period ! She will astound j hewitch ; tan- 
talize ! She may do you some good, young man, perhaps, by re- 
jecting finally the homage you pay in an instant of foolish admira- 
tion. She will sing to you that she may sting 3^ou with a barbed 
retort, that comes in answer to the very suggestion that she herself 
drew from your lips. The smart girl of the period ! I have seen 
her. I will tell you what she is like. She is like one of those 
Medusas, commonly called by the sailors, " Portuguese Man-of- 
War ;" of which you may have read a description, and specimens of 
which you may perhaps have seen. They are found plentifully 
off the south- w^e stern coast of South America, and one species 
abounds on the coast of Florida. Often have T watched them : rid- 
ing so gracefully upon the waves. There they float upon the 
ocean billows, — dancing over the surface, as the smart girl of the 
period sweeps along on the waves of society. And tlie unsophisti- 
cated young man involuntarily brushes back his hair and adjusts his 
eye-glasses, and looks again, as the phenomenon glides by. 0, how 
charming ! How jauutily the fascinating creature rides on the yeasty 
wave. There she is, with a gau/e-fiounce covered crinoline, all 
blown out around her : so beautiful ! And there is her fragile, 
fairy -like body, dressed in a vari-colored waistcoat ; her pretty little 
head and face, with a delicate saucer bojmet on the top of the 
head ; a great chignon })rotruding behind ; over the temples drip- 
ping the golden or auburn ringlets ; with a score of long ribbons 
fastened around the neck and streaming in the wind, — these giving 
no hint of the fang at the end of each one of them, and the force of 
a dozen Leyden jars of electricity, communicable at any point ! 0, 
how charming ! And the young man puts his hands slowly down up- 
on the creature. " Ah ! " " ah ! " — " It will not occur again ! '' he pro- 
tests, as maddened with the agon}^ he snaps his crippled fingers. 
But he will come again. He will renew and cultivate the ac- 
quaintance, — judiciously. He will come again, to gratify himself 
by witnessing a repetition of the little tragedy, — seeing her attract, 
and charm, and then lance — somebody else ! 



64 

Such a g'irl was not Julia Sumner. She was too sensible, too 
dignified, too highly enihued with a sense of the moral power and 
prerogative of woman. She could not be cruel either to women, 
men or animals. Some might have deemed her cold 5 but she 
always had tlie true honor of womanhood in her social relations. 
Her reprimand was candor; her more frequent approbation and 
cheer were stimulating for all good. And now, my friends, you 
are counting yourselves fortunate as you remember more and more 
what she said and did for you and your's ; and you are more and 
more satisfied that her aim and object in life were replete with in- 
structions of trutli and mercy. So she was not a smart girl of the 
period. 

Her religious experience was a matter of normal growth; deep and 
strong, it became more and more independent. And she was indeed 
precocious in the ascertaining that tlie place to find a satisfying por- 
tion is in the Book itself; leaving the notes of the learned com- 
mentator wher(.' for the longer interval they belong — on the 
shelves, — useful only for occasional and very brief reference. And 
this is not to disparage the work of criticism, but to discourage by 
the example, the habit of absolute reliance upon the searching and 
suggestions of others. She built right up from the New Testament, 
and the Songs and Proverbs and Prophecies : resting on that con- 
centrating and condensing word, — '' Thou shaft love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." 

Morning and night Julia Sumner could have been found with 
the New Testament in her hand and an abridged Concordance ; di 
reefing to the given subject in an argumentative way. And every 
day she brought out from the store-house things new and old. 

She could tell you that which you had supposed you had learned 
and understood years before. And yet it would be a fresh commu- 
nication, and given with such peculiar vivacity, in that bright, 
(|uick, sparkling emphasis, that your former recollections were sup- 
planted forever by the new recital. She always described from a 
tangent : comparison ; contrast ; similitude ; improvements. So in 



65 

ordinary tilings. Tlie person just passed resembled a friend in this, 
and would have been very like another it" such a change had been 
made in her face. The landscape before us will suggest to her the 
view we had from June Mountain, during the month previous ; this 
flowing stream needs but a slightly deeper hue to be the twin of 
our own Green River. And it was always so, and always accurate. 
With many, the reverting thought is now and then indulged or 
cultivated. With her, always. She was forever setting up her 
present and comparing it with the past, and suggesting differences : 
a vision, — a book, — an audience. Instantly would she institute 
parallels that seemed more and more perfect, the longer they were 
held in the testing inind to which they were submitted. Beyond 
these she made her original combinations in connection with the ob- 
jects examined ; often from the hint of a face or part of a land- 
scape, she would commence and outline a picture that would appear 
clear to the listener as the literal sight. So from the apparently 
trifling or incidental passage of the chosen author, she would con- 
struct an argument tliat would lead to an entirely different if not 
opposite logical conclusion. 

But to know with confidence how those verses of the Bible, that 
were commonly acknowledged to have a contraiy meaning on their 
surface, could be reconciled, harmonized, or balanced, — this was her 
great inquiry. And if you could help her in this, or if she could 
enlighten you in turn, happy was she for the day ; nor would she 
let you go from such a conference until she had expressly said that 
she was pleased with the interview, and anxious for a renewed or 
similar investigation. Like her father, — whom we have heard re- 
peat a thousand times Walter Scott's death-bed saying, "There is 
no book like the Bible," — she regarded the Bible as a revelation to 
be directly, diligently searched ; each one for himself or herself. 
Hers was not a morbid desire to re-examine many times some ob- 
scure line or immaterial passage, on which there were abundant 
opinions; not to scrutinize such passages over and over again until 
they were ground into tasteless pulp ; but a new section for a 



66 

new day, and tlie life from tlie texts as tliey were shown in their 
true juxtaposition, to point a moral and support a hope. So the 
whole hook was to be seen as the whole Heavens : enlarging the 
mind with holy thoughts, and overflowing the heart with emotions 
of repentance, reverence and love. ! that she could have lived to 
have preached both orally and by her publications ! Alas ! that it 
was not so to be ! 

On the ninth of October, 1864, she died. 

It will be ten years, on the 17th of next month, since I parted 
with Julia. We were standing on the platform in front of the 
building that then occupied the ground over which we are now as - 
sembled. I am now directly above the spot where we clasped hands 
for the last time, and where I uttered the last " Good-by." Ten 
years have rolled away, and the brothers are here once more : all 
together again in our native valley. 

' ' I hear the blackbird in the corn. 
The locust in the haying, 
And like the fabled hunter's horn, 
Old tunes my heart is playing." 

" Good-by, Julia ! " But she did not answer, '^ Good-l)y." We 
unclasped our hands, and she walked a few yards away. And then 
she half turned round and looked at me, — a farewell look : de- 
spondently sad, as though it bore the burden of a premonition. Our 
eyes met for the moment, during which we both remembered, as 
persons in some great peril, and travelled the scroll up to days of 
early childhood. Then she slowly turned her head away and 
passed with tarrying steps towards home. 

Good people : for six years I have tried to realize that your 
cherished friend and my sister is dead. I have even coldly 
thought that I ought to feel a more terrible woe in my heart, as a 
riffht fraternal tribute for her loss, and that because I did not con* 
stantly suffer that experience, there must be some mistake in the 
message I had received. I believe some of you could corroborate 
this, with something from your own experience. When I would 



G7 

nearly approach a complete realizing belief in the letters that told 
of her sickness and dying and burial, I saw those eyes turn upon me 
as she stood in the middle of the sidewalk beneath us. A frivolous 
character, a spiritually uninspired woman could not leave that last- 
ing signet of love with any one. I know I shall see her standing- 
there when I go down those steps to-night : and I shall murmur, 
" Good-by ;*' and she will slowly walk away. 

You remember how^ she looked in her life-time, at the instant 
when she last spoke to you ; for some have written and more have 
told us that such was the fact. And I note this here, not need- 
ed to make an exhibition of feeling, but to properly magnify the 
appreciation of her gifts. She was indeed of that countenance 
which '' speaks volumes,'' and seals the thoughts of the mind in 
the hearts of all acquaintances. Styles and tones of speech can be 
copied by the trained imitator ; but vain is the art that attempts to 
transmit a full sentence of joy or sorrow, with an abiding force, 
by the poetrj^ of the features. There is no possible, successful mim- 
icry in this. And absolutely untrammelled by superstition, know- 
ing now as definitely as I realize my own existence, that she has 
returned to dust, and her breath to the God that gave it, I dare to 
intrude this testimony, at this day, to the wonderful mesmeric will 
thrown into the face of her whose shadow looks down upon us from 
these walls to night, — exhibited and planted when there was no 
terror, and when on my part there was no dread lest we should 
never meet on this unrenewed earth again. 

"■ Our yoimg and gentle friend, whose smile 
Made brighter summer hours, 
Amid the frosts of Autumn time. 
Has left us with the flowers. 

The light of her young life went down, 

As sinlvs behind the hill. 
The glory of the setting star : 

Clear, suddenly and still. 

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed 
Eternal as the sky ; 



68 

And like the brook's low song her voice, — 
A sound which conld not die. 

The blessing of her quiet life 

Fell on us like the dew, 
And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed, 

Like fairy blossoms grew. 

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds 

Were in her very look ; 
We read her face as one who reads 

A true and holy book, — 

The measure of a blessed hymn. 

To which oui' hearts could move, 
The breathing of an inward psalm — 

A canticle of love. 

There seems a shadow on the day 

Her smile no longer cheers ; 
A dimness on the stars of night, 

Like eyes that look through tears. 

Alone unto our Father's will 

One thought has reconciled : 
That He whose love exceedeth ours, 

Will yet take home his child. 

Still let her mild rebuking stand 

Between us and the wrong, 
And her dear memory serve to make 

Our faith in goodness strong. 

And grant that she who trembling here. 

Distrusted all her powers. 
May welcome in that holier home. 

The well-belov'd of ours." 

If Julia Sumner could have been called upon to name the me- 
morial which an affectionate father should determine to construct, we 
may readily believe she would immediately, and without suggesting 
aid, have planned a public hall like the one in which we are now 
gathered. I do not know, but I presume its fitness as an undoubt- 
ed response to what she would have named, was prominently in the 
mind of the builder from the first moment of its conception. 
Certainly nothing could be more in consonance with her general 
sentiment ; more agreeable to her taste, sympathy and ambition. 



69 

But there was a special lioiir of Dedication. When reared and 
roofed, and altogether finished in its outlines, the old man, — almost 
seventy years of age — was stricken down on his death-bed. And in 
the short interval of fully reviving powers of thoughtand speech, to his 
only attending and elder son he formally disclosed his purpose, and 
solemnly pronounced the dedicatorial words already quoted : '^ It 
is fixed J it is to be a Memorial Hall ; it is to be called the Julia 
Sumner Hall." And with respect to the building, no other direc- 
tion was given than that which is contained in these three short sen- 
tences of baptism. It was enough. 

And now, my friends, I ask your indulgence for a few moments 
more, while I briefly submit some thoughts touching that which I 
conceive to be the quality and characteristic of both these persons, 
who are commemorated in this central edifice, which should be held 
prominently up for approval and example. Our recollections will 
be distinct and various, as were our relations to the deceased j and 
we will yield a certain prominence to the mementoes of thought or 
deed, which are with us personal, — the keepsakes which one valu- 
able life always bequeaths to surviving companions. But for our- 
selves, and for such as may hereafter become interested in these 
lives, we plead the special object for contemplation and study and 
pattern. What was this quality or characteristic ? It was an hon- 
est self-assertion. In my mind this is the grand theme which is ex- 
emplified — so to speak — and commended with great emphasis in 
the biography of this father and child. This was the energizing 
quality, held in conjunction with the strong mental and moral fac- 
ulties which we have imperfectl}- indicated. You will not misap- 
prehend. There is an overabundance of brazen-faced impudence 
in this sin-cursed nation, for which, and in the midst of which, and 
by its very strength, its possessors foolishly bid decent people to do 
obeisance to their brawling bravery ; neither good sense nor cour- 
age being educated portions of the nature of such " champions." 
Honest self-assertion, guarded by the sound judgment that almost 
invariablv attends remarkable mental and emotional faculties : of 



70 

tins I speak. You may call it the courage of conscience ; we want 
to get at the element. 

Eight principles, progressive ideas, without might and disposition 
to proclaim and to insist, and to rebut opposing doctrines, and with- 
out a frankly admitted enjoyment of the recompense of reward in a 
victory — this latter being a mighty stimulant — are of but little use. 
A man of intellectual ability and pecuniary wealth, who listens to 
and accepts the advice of the wise ones with whom Satan beleaguers 
every community, and keep quiet, here and there, as to the truth or 
the justice which he knows and feels, when justice should be vindi- 
cated and truth spoken, will very likely become immensely popu- 
lar ,• he will be pointed out as the example for the young ; and by 
his wicked inaction and silence he will do yeoman service for the 
master of evil. There will always be policy comrades raised up to 
tell such a man when it is '^ safe" to speak out and make a loud 
voice with timbrel and shawm. ! when there are so many to cry 
" Amen,'' and " Amen," and ^' Amen/' refreshing it is to meet with 
those who will stand up in the midst of the babbling chorus and object , 
and deny, and refute, and reverse. And it matters not whether this 
quality of honest self-assertion be displayed in a larger or smaller 
circle of humanity : the satisfaction of every person capable of ap- 
preciating the Right is equally intense, when the demonstration 
breaks up cliques and overthrows rings, and works out the simple 
proprieties. It is not discontent 5 it is not a litigous disposition 5 it 
is not cold calculation : it is study to ascertain that which is most 
fit, and then ever-present will to announce the conclusion and urge 
it forward for consideration. 

Is it to be supposed that these persons did not understand that 
their comfort would be promoted b}^ silence and acquiescence ? 

In neighborly intercourse I will bring vou facts composing an 
entire narrative in which I am deeply interested. I state them with 
care, and from the manuscript or memory that my labor has made 
absolutely correct. " What do you think about them ? " If I get 
your opinion I am repaid for my toil. I am, in fact, your debtor. 



71 

And you in return will, by and by, come to nie witli sncli 
a matter of history or personal inquiry, having a like pur- 
pose. If there are no opinions to be given until a Round-robbin 
has been subscribed l)y all the villagers, then j^ou and I want to 
leave the village. Not a boisterous, but a bold, candid opinion is 
required. 

It is to be observed with respect to those who are frank and full 
in the utterance of their own well-considered opinions, that they are 
the most catholic and charitable. This is presumed and inevitable, 
when we say that their opinions are the result of judicious deliber- 
ation. And it seems to follow naturally from this, that persons of 
the character described give the best exhibitions of friendship ; are 
the most helpful to the young and the comparatively feeble and in- 
experienced, and are utterly devoid of all that species of morbid 
introspection which vitiates a vast amount of otherwise valuable en- 
ergy in the world of mankind. 

In localities where there are no citizens of strongly marked indi- 
viduality, there is a breeding in and in of ideas, productive of men- 
tal imbecility and moral stagnation. And if there be faults inevi- 
tably connected with such characters, then it may be said that it is 
for the physical and mental healthfulness of the world that these 
infirmities be kindly recognized and everywhere exercised. 

A multitude of thoughts, in argument and illustration crowd up- 
on the mind in dwelling upon such a theme. But I admonish my- 
self of the unusual amount of time in which I have kept your gra- 
cious and perfect attention. 

Let us trust that this structure will long continue to ornament the 
village and accommodate the general public, and promote the com- 
mon welfare. 

My friends : I know it is your desire lo enter as heartily into the 
sentiment of this dedication, as do we who sit and stand upon this 
platform to-night. Twenty years ago our father delivered a lecture 
in this village, in which he expressed regret that there was not a 
suitable hall for public convocation in the village. How provi- 



72 

dentially has lie filled liis judgment, and bnilt his monument, and 
named a memorial. 

This audience chamber is your legacy ; not ours alone. And 
you have come, I think, to join in these ceremonies with unquali- 
fied interest and approval. And you will come to-morrow, and to- 
morrow, and to-morrow, as the appointments here shall be pleasing 
to you ; each time sanctifying the place with your renewed tribute 
of regard and regret. Not with funereal melancholy ; not as to a 
compelled service of commemoration, — like the Chinese, gathering 
around their mausoleums, to mourn for their ancestors of centuries 
gone by. The rays of his genial temperament shall beam upon 
you as you ascend the entrance steps. And a glance at her fair 
face shall dispel every thought of gloom If you knew her, it 
shall enhance your appetite for cheerful song and decent mirth a 
hundred-fold. 

Come ! Come ye who were here before our father took his place 
among the citizens of the village. Come ye who knew him in his 
youthful days ; who remember when he was first introduced in the 
town, and plead his first cause in John Hopkins' Couit. Come ! 
Come Isaac Seeley, and John and Asa Russell, and Ralph Taylor, 
and E. P. Woodworth, and B. W. Patterson, and Harvey Holmes, 
and Gilbert Munson, and Gideon Whiting, and the scores of co- 
temporaries that remain. Come ! ! you knew the man. Come ! 
And it cannot be otherwise than that without detracting from the 
special gratification that may be set for the hour, you will be largely 
recruited by the accessories and associations of the place, peculiar 
to your memories alone. 

And ye widowed matrons and honored spinsters, whose neighbor- 
ly intimacy began with him and his household through the wife of 
his youth, and has continued through the loving and faithful coun- 
sellor and deeply bereaved companion of his later years : Come ! 

And come, honest yeoman, old client : whom I have seen so often 
in the ofiice, unroUing an old-fashioned pocket book, and taking 
out the long bank bill, for which you obtained a dollar's worth of 



73 

legal lore : Come ! You know you bad a well-earned equivalent 
for your money j and the interest of your hard-earned fee is wrought 
into the texture of these walls, for your benefit and for the good of 
your children. Come ! 

Come ye lawyers : when on your occasional business trips through 
this section of the valley, there seems to be an invitation also in 
the entertainment that is here announced. Come ! You who have 
so often heard him rapidly rehearse the facts of his case with most 
unerring accuracy ; grouping them with unsurpassed skill in their 
most puteutial order ; and then focalizing and driving them home 
with terrible strength of logic and of sentiment : Come ! There is 
healthful professional tonic for you in the salubrious breezes that 
are wafted between these cornice windows. Come ! 

Ye who have heard him narrate the laughable facts, as only he 
could recite them : eliciting the ludicrous from the driest story; dis- 
secting a hypocrite with pitiless surgery, and reconstructing him in 
the picture with his contradictions in new joints, — provoking by the 
operation a fever of merriment, that at times seemed almost in- 
sufferable : Come ! 

And ye that have seen him — perchance gone with him — as, one 
after another he followed his three little children, and then his wife, 
to yonder cemetery : Come ! And come ye who have been with him 
beside the dying bed, or the grave of that daughter who had grown 
to womanhood, so lovely and so rich in promise, — " 0, my only 
remaining daughter ! my child ! my child ! Julia, my child ! 
would to God I could have died for thee !" Ye who have seen this 
strong man bowed down to earth by the afflictions with which the 
great enemy is still permitted to grievously wound the world of hu- 
manity, and know what tenderness there was in his nature : Come ! 

And every maiden who laid a flower on the old man's casket, and 
the unknown friend who secreth^ planted the green tiu'f around his 
grave ; Come ! 

All disagreements, all angerments — if a faint trace of any such 

abide — are to be dismissed to-night, and henceforth. Come ! The 
10 



74 

old man as he went fearlessly down into the grave, closed his work 
in behalf of us all. He repented him of his faults in dust and 
ashes — as all men of his stamp and moral triumphs do : knowing- 
that there is an advocate with the Father, who is sufficient for that 
which is lacking. And he bequeathed this edifice as a consumma- 
tipn of liberality and good-will to you. And now let us rise and 
join in the formal and ample dedication of this chamber, even as 
he devised and decreed it should be. 

May it be a radiating centre of civilization and refinement, so long- 
as its walls shall stand. May peace, and joy, and gladness, have a 
home in this secular tabernacle, and may the blessings and bene- 
dictions that carry all those good and gentle influences which father 
and daughter desired and delighted to exert, rest upon every one 
who shall gather here for a season of instruction, recreation, or be- 
nevolent counsels. As the new people and the new generations of 
the village pass by its portals, may they often be given a recollec- 
tion of the dead, who cannot but speak most impressively to an- 
cient acquaintances and fiiends in this pleasant structure ; all 
thankful that he found it in his heart to rear this building, ere his 
days were numbered ; accepting aud carrying out his dying bap- 
tismal directions concerning his own memorial work ; thankful that 
these two lived to help and grace the virtuous society of the world ; 
praising God for the dispensation that set this man and this daugh- 
ter in this valley ; repeating with emotions, it may be with tears, 
of love and pride, and emulating hope, the names of Increase and 
Julia Sumnee. 



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